


Kidnap Job

by Seal9



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Depression, Detectives, Drugs, F/M, Leonard Snart is a Detective, Leviathan Wakes (AU), Magic, Organized Crime, Sexual Content, Suicidal Thoughts, The Expanse (AU), The Glades, vigilantes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-11-01 15:05:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 45,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17869508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seal9/pseuds/Seal9
Summary: Whilst dealing with the brewing chaos in the Glades, detective Leonard Snart gets a side contract to track down a missing Sara Lance for her father. Hesitant at first, he later discovers that she may be involved in more than he imagined, and his desire to find her grows. What starts as a simple kidnap job, turns into something much more deadly and threatening, on a global scale.AU based on Leviathan Wakes / The Expanse Season 1 and Season 2 (E01-E05)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Leviathan Wakes / The Expanse AU I have been considering doing for a while now. If you've read the book or seen the equivalent of it in the show, things will appear very familiar and you will probably understand the direction of this story. If you haven't, it's an amazing read/watch, so please do so. This work will be more akin and inline with Leviathan Wakes than it will the TV, but I will add some elements from the show for those that haven't read the book.
> 
> This story is dark, gritty, and depressing. Not a happy love story (at all).

Breathe in. 

Footsteps stop outside her cell, grey steel obscuring the vision between the guards and herself. A sneaking shadow creeps under the gap of the, right in the middle where there’s a small peephole at eye level. It’s like the kind that one would be used on a home or apartment’s door to see who’s knocking on your door, except it’s reversed, and used to see inside her cell. 

“Up against the wall! Now!” the voice is muffled but audible. 

Well so much for trying to meditate.

Breathe out.

Her eyes opened lazily as she sits herself up in the cot, twisting her body to the left and right to ease some of the tension in her back and shoulders. She’s slow to swing her legs off the cot and plant her feet on the floor before pushing downwards with exhausted arms. 

She hears the impatient tapping of feet from outside as she slowly hobbles over to the back wall of her cell. Her clammy hands fit over the bloody handprint that she left behind a few days ago, shifting her fingers slightly to match the red outline perfectly. 

She smiles. ‘Twas a good kill that one.

Locks hiss open, steel bolts slamming back with such force that she can feel it vibrate through the metal, and with a hard scrape of the hinges, the door swings open.

Squabbling and arguing can be heard behind her, the two guards trying to send each other into the lion’s mouth, knowing full well that neither of them might come back out of the room alive. She would laugh, except her voice hasn’t been used in days and her throat is dry. They don’t give her a lot of water, just barely enough to keep her alive. 

The woman focuses on her fingernails. Dirty, jagged, and chewed out of boredom, after she had tried to use her nails as some sort of weapon or tool, which had only been successful in slicing out a guard’s eye. 

Eventually, one of the guards enters into her cell. It could be a result of bravery, stupidity, or the more likely option that he was pushed in. Shoes squeak along the floor in a scuffling manner, coming to a complete stop moments later, confirming the latter option. 

She glances over her shoulder for a quick look. Short guy, about her height, fair skin and reasonably built. He’s lean, but he’s not skinny. She checks out his face, eyes scanning for details. A soft face with a terrified expression. She finds him to be quite cute. 

With just this one look, she can tell he’s not meant for this life, and she pities him. Probably just some guy who was looking for a job in private security, expecting to work at some firm doing the night watch. Not this shit that’s actually happened. He’s in too deep now, that much she can tell, and there’s no going back. 

They’ve been trying to weaken her for however long they’ve held her. They want her alive, much to her surprise. She is only thankful that her fate isn’t shared with the rest of the women in this underground facility. At least their deaths are quick. Not painless, but fortunately brief. Her only regret is that she wasn’t able to save them. She thought she could do it. Find out about these abductions and rescue the women, but she failed. It took a very unexpected and surprising turn which had blindsided her and put her in this situation. 

“You have another appointment with the Doc,” she’s told with a tone of pity. 

Yay! Her favourite part of the day. Except, part of her knows that they screw up the schedule, sometimes delaying the appointment for hours, and sometimes pushing it forward at random, so she can’t be sure of if it’s the same day or not. All part of the elaborate plan to strip her of her reality, cripple her mind so she can’t think straight. The drugs they give her make it that much more effective too. 

Everything they do is to weaken and prepare her body for reconditioning. Lowering her immune system so it is more susceptible to whatever they want to put inside her. Making her go insane will also make her mind more susceptible, but she’s trying to hold out. 

Two gentle hands hold her against the wall, one shifting to her arm and slapping a cuff around her wrist, before moving onto the other. Fear reeks off of this guy, and she can feel the shakes coming through his hand as he grabs her shoulder and turns her around, pushing her towards the door where the other guard has a stun gun trained on her. 

A growl rumbles through her throat and mouth at the other guy, almost making her cough, but the fear on the guard’s face makes it work it. He's an asshole as far as she’s concerned, and she loves to terrify him by killing off his partners, making him dread the day she turns to him. 

Eyes look to the stun gun with hope, dreams of the sweet release of death if she can just grab it and press it into her throat. With enough voltage and pressure, her windpipe will close off, blocking off all air flow and choking her. She’ll pass out within seconds if she can exhale enough air beforehand, and then her brain will be starved of oxygen and ultimately die. 

She can only hope. 

Bare feet are dragged along the floor in tow of the body they belong too, skin burning with friction against the hard surface. She tolerates it, because even the simple act of just being difficult is enough to make it worth it. 

A hundred metres feels like a hundred kilometres. They are practically synonymous experiences to her at this point. Still, she is dragged towards the laboratory.

The door hisses open, sliding away into the gap in the frame, revealing her now, favourite bed. Fresh out the mad doctor basement, bringing with it the most annoying overhead light that she has ever experienced, leather that sticks to her skin as her body sweats, and metal cuffs which lock her limbs in place. 

For all the shit that being in this bed gives her, she enjoys it infinitely more than her cell for the simple fact that something actually happens to her. All this isolation, with the infrequent appointments with the doctor, make her body and mind crave the magical torture that she endures. 

That’s right. 

Magical torture. 

Oh. This is no ordinary mad scientist. This here be a wizard. He doesn’t dress up in blue robes with cute little lightning bolts and a pointy hat, much to her disappointment. He’s quite dull. Well shaven and groomed, somewhere around five-foot-eight, white skin and has glasses over dark emerald green eyes. She’s certain that his eyes are magically induced, or at least the occasional spark and glow she sees in them is a sign of his magic. 

The guards stop her in front of the mostly upright bed, just outside the perimeter of the white chalk lines that encompass it in a circle. Her wizard-y friend isn’t here yet, making her frown. He always has something to babble on about, an ex-wife or other embarrassing romantic tales, which gives her brain something to think about. 

But her mind does realise she is alone with these two guards, and an idea forms that will most certainly make her happy. 

The cuffs around her wrist are unlocked, and with a hefty push against her back, she is knocked forward into the bed by the man with the stun gun. Catching herself from the stagger, she steps to the front and up the platform she’s been provided to climb onto the bed. Takes a few moments, but she snuggles herself into the uncomfortable posture she’s going to have to endure for God knows how long, and waits. 

Closing her eyes, she hears the guards split apart and move to either side of her, beginning to fasten the restraints. Peeping through a crack in her eyelids, she looks for the guy with the stun gun. On her right. Fantastic. 

The guy starts with her arms, a smart choice for when he has to restrain her legs later, because she could easily kill him while he was distracted. But smart choice or not, her body kicks into action, her other hand flying out of the grasp of the cute guy on her left, thumb plunging into the eyeball of the guy on the right. 

A blood curling roar of pain erupts from him as her finger twists deep before a squelching popping sound and blood spurts from the socket. With her other hand, she spins him around with ease, looping her arm around his neck and snapping it. 

With a tired grunt, she shoves his body off her and watches it slump to the ground, blood gushing from the burst eyeball, leaving a deep red puddle of blood. The body and blood interfere with the white chalk and inscriptions on the ground, which will almost certainly piss of the doctor. 

Additionally, her body isn’t happy, yelling at her for using muscles that are exhausted and weak. 

She leans back into the upright bed, rotating her head to the left to look at the remaining guard. Mortified and paralysed with fear, he stares at her with wide eyes, unable to reach for the stun gun by his belt. She doubts he’s ever used that thing in a live situation. 

“Fuck.”

Her bloody hand, a mixture of white flesh and crimson blood, reaches out to him and cups his cheek. She brushes her thumb across it, leaving a smear of blood in the wake. She wants to kiss him. No particular reason other than the fact he’s cute and his face makes her smile. It had been so long since she felt any kind of physical attraction to someone, and she suspected the current attraction and desire for this man was simply because her brain, weakened by the captivity, wanted to remember what it used to feel like before her memories are lost in the chaos. 

Silently, through only facial expressions and a quick tilt of her head, she tries to ask him if he wants her to kill him too. It’s the least she can do really. She sees death as his only option of escape from this cruel occupation he’s a part of. And she’s pretty sure there’s an insurance policy where his family will be compensated if he dies on the job. 

He gets the message.

“Uh, I’ll take my chances, thanks.”

She nods, pats him on the cheek a few times before wiping her bloody hand on his uniform. She looks at him with an apologetic expression. He returns with a similar look, more sympathetic knowing what’s going to happen to her in this room while he waits outside. 

Without any resistance or movement, she lets him secure her to the bed. He just stands beside her and stares at the corpse of his partner. With uncertainty on his face, he looks between her and the body, as if hoping someone will come along and do something.

That’s when the door in the back of the lab opens and the doctor walks in. 

“Ha,” he chuckles, pushing his glasses up his nose like a smug bastard, “I was wondering how long you were going to let him stir in fear,” then he gets closer and actually sees the corpse and the mess along with it and lets out an annoyed sigh, “Not cool, missy.”

She rolls her eyes, turning to the cute guard and shrugging her shoulders best she can, as if to say ‘whatever.’

“I saw that,” the doctor says, still keeping most of his attention on the corpse.

She sticks her tongue out at him and pouts, letting her head droop forward. 

“Give me a hand, will ya?” the doctor says to the other guard. 

Takes a few minutes, but he disposes of the body while the doctor begins conjuring a spell to clean up the blood with ease. A few minutes later, and the chalk lines that mark her ritual circle of torture are back in place and ready to activate. 

A soft hand intertwines with her bloody and calloused hand, surprising her for a moment as she follows up the arm to its host. There’s a sympathetic look behind his brown eyes, knowing and apologetic for his involvement in placing her in this position. She refuses to shift any blame onto him. 

And now he must depart. A thumb brushes against the back of her hand, a gentle squeeze as he tries to give some kind of assurance before the connection is severed and her hand feels empty once more. The brief presence of comforting flesh makes the following absence that much more present in her 

Blue eyes watch the guard start to leave, tracking his entire movement as he stops at the door, waiting for it to buzz open. He turns back for only a moment, a brief glance at her where he looks at her with pity, before he steps out and the door shuts behind him. 

At least there is a nice face waiting for her at the end of this session.

“Alright sweetheart,” the doctor grabs a bowl containing a collection of foreign ingredients for the ritual, “let’s begin, shall we?”

Flames ignite from the candles around the chalk circle, the crushed powder from the bowl lifting into the air. Her brain already begins the countdown, waiting for the surge of pain to come. Teeth clench and she does her best not to accidentally chew off her own tongue when the pain kicks in. 

Two needles prick her arm, one after the other. She knows what the first one is for. This is the one that has been weakening her mind and making everything hazy and hard to focus. The other is more recent, introduced only two sessions back, and she hasn’t worked out what it does yet. The first injection makes it hard to feel her body when the second needle enters anyway. 

Just as the doctor steps back, removing the second needle from her arm, the circle fully activates, and the torture begins. 

Pain surges through her, as her body goes through the experience of burning, freezing, suffocating, and being crushed, all in quick succession, all repeating. There is no pattern, all irregular in their lengths, so that when she just begins to focus on one of them, it changes and throws her mind out of focus. 

She feels every flame lick at her body, burning away flesh with each singeing touch. Hail and frost pepper her body, bruising flesh as the frostbite forms around her ears, hands and feet. Her chest and lungs take the full brunt of the suffocation and crushing pain, unable to properly contract and expand. Any attempt to force herself to choke to death by exhaling is done in vain, as the torture brings her to the edge of consciousness and death, before flipping to something different. 

Just as her body begins writhing away, beaten, burnt, frozen and broken, the doctor casts another spell, and her body begins healing. Except it’s not really healing. Her body is returning back to its previous state, moments before the torture, which means that she relives the entire experience again. A twisted double dip of torture if you like. 

She tries to stay focused. Hold onto the one thing they want to take away from her. 

Her sense of identity. 

Her name. 

Sometimes she feels it slip from her reach, as if her hands are covered in sweat and just unable to apply enough grip to create the necessary friction needed to hold onto it. 

But she pushes through, withstands it all and reaches out for it nonetheless.

Her name is hers, and they will never take it from her. 

Sara Lance.


	2. Chapter 2

More protests means more shit for Leonard Snart to keep an eye on. This was what, the seventh protest in the last two weeks? Give him a break. It’s only 10 am. His ears have heard this same story repeated too often that the words are becoming meaningless to him. 

“The Glades is turning into Gotham City!” the speaker shouts over the crowds, eliciting a resounding booing sound from the crowd. 

Leonard rolls his eyes. Whatever.

This entire process is like an echo chamber. They rile themselves up, spouting on about how fucked up the Glades is compared to the rest of Star City, then they start yelling about how they want change and demand it now from City Hall and the Mayor’s office. 

Unfortunate for the people of the Glades, democracy hasn’t done jack shit for them. Every election for the last ten years that Leonard’s been in this city has been the same. Someone from the Glades tries to run, tries to promise that they will make an effort, but there simply aren’t enough people in the Glades to form the majority vote. The other political parties have too much power and sway over the individuals with influence in Star City. Nobody from the Glades stands a chance, and therefore, they’re left to their own accords, while the rest of the city prospers. 

Good old democracy notwithstanding, there are two major problems with the Glades. 

First off, the Glades has become the cesspool of crime with Star City. No decent taxpayer with any bit of right-mindedness would want their money to be funded towards a part of the city so rife with crime. This is gang territory with criminals and thugs almost everywhere you go. Leonard can’t go a whole 24 hours without hearing about some mugging or break-in. Frankly, he’s genuinely surprised there is still enough left in the Glades that people want to steal. He can only imagine that everyone is stealing from each other and the cycle never stops. 

Crime is the one constant in the Glades. Even before the Glades was torn apart during some device-initiated earthquake, the streets were still run by criminals. He heard from somewhere that the intention was to kill all the criminals and rebuild the Glades into a standard that matches the rest of the city. 

Doesn’t like too bad of a plan in Leonard opinion. Sure, he doesn’t like that innocent people were going to get caught up in the Earthquake, but he’s definitely of the opinion that the Glades need a hard reset if any good is ever going to come out of it.

The plan didn’t work. Only one of two devices went off, which meant only half the problem was gone. All the remaining gangs saw this as prime opportunity to sow themselves into the rebuilding process. These gangs are like weeds, able to grow in the shittiest of conditions, and kill off anything else that might have a chance of growing. 

Because of the gangs who had planted themselves in the crippled parts of the Glades, City Hall didn’t even want to consider giving funding. 

“Ay, copper!” 

Leonard’s gaze raises slowly, looking up to see the finger pointed right at him. 

Meet problem number two. The cops. Unofficially, SCPD has two departments. The department that deals with the Glades, and the department that doesn’t. Leonard is part of the former. Underfunded, understaffed, minimal resources and equipment, and almost entirely corrupt. There will always be cops, just as there will always be gangsters, stuck in this perpetual cycle of conflict, but that never means the conflict is balanced. 

And unbalanced it most certainly is. Because Leonard’s department is so screwed over and practically given up on, wages are so low that you almost can’t survive on it alone. Everyone has to look for alternatives these days, and the gangs know it. They thrive on it actually. They may as well own a handful of the cops, having made sure that there is an urgent dependency on the gang’s funding to keep rooves above their heads. 

Leonard has done a good job at making sure he doesn’t fall that far. He’s had to make his fair share of deals with the devil, but he’s made sure it’s never gotten to the point of selling his soul the damn gangsters. Plus, the salary of being a detective is much higher compared to the patrol cops, and the bonuses for solving cases keep him in the clear most weeks. 

Long story short, the cops can’t do shit about all this crime, even if they tried. The best that can be done is keeping it contained to the Glades and away from the rest of the city.

“Gotham City Police would feel right at home with you lot,” the man shouts towards Leonard, earning a resounding cheer from the crowd as they agree. 

Maybe they would. He’s heard how shit Gotham is, and how far the GCPD has fallen since the murder of their commissioner. 

What was his name again? Jim Holden? Jim Jordan? No, that’s right. Jim Gordan. The man who tried to make a change. Tried to fix Gotham City, but he failed. A bullet to his head by one of the dozen crime bosses in that fucked up place. Leonard would gladly pick the Glades any day over Gotham. 

A barrage of insults is thrown Leonard’s way. Some remarks about his corrupt co-workers, a jab or two about his crooked father. It’s not the first time he’s heard these, and it’s likely they won’t be the last. Comes with the job and the reputation of being a general hardass that people can’t tolerate. 

He sighs, turns slightly to the figure beside him, “Come on. We got a job to do.”

His partner is reluctant, but follows on, glancing back at the speaker who shouts after them for a few seconds before turning his attention back to rallying the crowd. 

“The Glades always like this?” his partner asks, trailing along.

Leonard wraps his parka around himself tighter. Man, it’s getting cold this time of year. 

“Yeah,” he answers simply. 

No point in trying to hide the play it down or hide the grim reality. Faster he can get the truth in this new guy’s head, the safer he’ll be. Leonard didn’t ask for another partner. He’s still unsure as to the specifics of why he got a new partner, but he thinks it has something to do with the fact Leonard put a bullet through the head of a gangster who had been pissing him off. Maybe. He claimed it was a clean shoot, and nobody could disprove it, especially not the victim, but he knew the higher-ups were keeping a close eye on him recently. 

Standing an inch or two taller than Snart, Raymond Palmer has well-groomed black hair hidden underneath a dark brimmed hat. His warm padded vest for the winter sits snug against his well-built and defined torso. He’s an attractive man, strong and athletic, clean shaven and has this stupidly perfect white-toothed smile that Leonard was ready to send his fist cracking through the moment he saw them. 

There’s this naturally radiating sense of positivity coming off this guy, as if being in his vicinity would simply brighten up your day. Leonard thinks this is some kind of reconditioning or punishment, that somehow this guy’s presence and influence would change Leonard’s cynical and roguish ways. Well, tough shit. It’s this exact suspicion which makes Leonard willingly resist whatever charming positivity that this man lets out. 

They walk together for the next few blocks, the cold wind trying to cut through their fabrics and chill their skin. The sun, according to Raymond, whilst not providing much heat through the thick layer of clouds, is still casting its deadly UV rays. Leonard listens idly as Raymond goes into detail about how the clouds refract sunlight and amplify the intensity of the ray of light. He hears half of some story about some guy Raymond used to know that would frequently get sunburnt and appear lobster red more days than not. 

This Palmer fellow is way chattier than his previous partner. But Leonard doesn’t find it within himself to snap at the guy to shut up and give him silence. There’s something almost therapeutic and numbing about half-tuning out of the droning stories, which gives Leonard a different kind of peace of mind. 

It’s better than thinking about his father again at least. 

They reach their destination, an ugly looking apartment complex which has seen better days. He knew it to be on the outskirts of the destructive ring caused by the first earthquake device. It wasn’t completely destroyed, but the destruction and rumbling that occurred down the street had reached this building and collapsed a few of the walls. 

“Listen up,” Leonard stops outside the front entrance and silences Raymond mid-story, “Don’t say anything. Don’t touch anything. Don’t even fucking look at anybody. People here can be jumpy, and a wrong look can get you killed.”

“Oka-” Raymond tries to say, but the harsh glare that Leonard throws his way frightens him into silence. 

Silently, Leonard gestures with a tilt of his head for Raymond to follow. Stepping through the front entrance, they are presented with the view of the grubby lobby. Couches with questionable red and white stains that Leonard tries not to identify the source of, and walls littered with different mediums of graffiti. A green with black outlined arrowhead catches his attention. There is an impressive amount of detail in the piece, shadow lines that look fairly decent for spray paint. 

There’s a part of him that wishes the kids who did would at least do it for a commission instead of vandalising random walls. Some of these ‘artworks’ are pretty fucking good, especially this arrow one. The artist could make a decent profit if they sold it as artwork. Maybe they’d be able to make themselves a name and get themselves out of the Glades. 

It’s one of the few dreams and hopes that Leonard has left. And it’s a part of the even smaller category of hopes and dreams that has nothing to do with Leonard’s personal gain or benefit. 

Three flights of stairs later, Leonard and Raymond step out into the dim-lit hallway and stride towards room number 38. Instinctively, Leonard’s hand falls to his holster and his thumb rests along the quick release he designed for improved withdrawing speeds. A reaction to whenever he approaches a room. After seeing people jumped too often and the fatal consequences of not being prepared, Leonard always makes sure he’s ready to fire back. 

The cramped entrance displeases him, knowing that the narrowness of the doorway and the meter-long hallway into the apartment before expands out is a perfect kill zone for anyone who wanted to off a pair of cops. Fortunately, nobody wants to off a pair of cops today, and they join the CSI working around the body of the drug dealer.

The detective and his partner are met with the repulsive and pungent smell of a corpse left to rot and decay. Leonard finds he never gets quite used to the smell, always making him scrunch up his nostrils when reintroduced with a corpse’s scent. This one has been out for a few days, he can tell. 

“Detective Snart,” the CSI looks up from his camera and greets with a quick tilt back of his head, “Meet Brendon Hills.”

Cause of death is pretty fucking obvious, unless Leonard wants to play dumb and ignore the five stab wounds in the guy’s stomach. Short, squarish guy. There’s a decent amount of muscle on his body, but he sees the early signs of a beer belly and the flabby skin around the neck which shows the lack of exercise this guy has done in recent times. 

Recollection of the name from a file he’s read before notwithstanding, the guy’s appearance and his apartment identify him as a drug dealer. Open lockboxes and jewellery containers strewn across the floor, empty now, but almost certainly filled previously with whatever this guy was selling. 

“I’d figure there might have been three others involved in the killing, but there is the possibility that the woman who called this in might be messing with my observation of the scene,” the CSI regretfully tells. 

“He’s one of the Count’s dealers,” Leonard’s mutters more to himself, a reminder of where the name Brendon Hills had come from. 

Suspected as far as the legitimate and admissible investigation is concerned, but he’s heard narcotics say they are certain of the fact. Nothing they can do about it though, considering that nothing concrete and admissible in court can prove it. Thing is, they don’t really care about finding something concrete on this guy. There’s no point, and it’s a waste of time and money trying to take down this guy. 

“Any calling cards?” Leonard asks, whilst taking a look around the apartment himself, frowning when the edge of his shoe dabs into the dried blood stained into the carpet. 

“None that I’ve seen so far,” the CSI looks to Leonard just as the detective turns back to face him. 

They share a cautious look, one that has the faintest hint of fear mixed behind it. 

“So we’re possibly looking for unaligned thugs?”

The regretful nod of the head by the CSI puts a frown on Leonard’s face. He doesn’t like the sound of that, Things always get messy when something like this happens. Unaligned gangsters are the kind of shit Leonard really doesn’t want to handle. 

Then something clicks in Leonard’s head, “How long has this guy been dead for?”

“He died sometime over the weekend. It’s hard to determine an exact day, but I’m more confident with Saturday than I am Sunday.”

Leonard nods and looks around the apartment. The mess is chaotic, but also purposeful. Whoever the criminals were that offed this dealer, they were looking for drugs. But he doesn’t care about that right now. He’s looking for something that might answer a question. 

Leonard walks into the tiny kitchen, a small dividing wall that makes it feel unnecessarily claustrophobic. A few of the cupboards have been searched, likely by the murderers, looking for hidden supplies of the good stuff. 

He checks the kitchen, reaching past the wasted scraps and leftovers to the back and side walls, tapping and knocking to listen for any suspicious sounds of a hidden compartment. He tries it a few times with some of the cabinets, finds nothing. Then he turns to the small stove and opens the door and peers inside. He runs his hand along the roof and the floor, feeling it up until his finger brushes against a small crack. 

“Rookie,” Leonard calls out, “Torch over here.”

Raymond’s footsteps approach behind Leonard and he can the sound of a torch being pulled out of one of his vest and clicked on. A beam of white light shines inside the dark stove, illuminating the silver barred shelves. 

Additionally, it gives Leonard the clear sight of the small crack he felt. Pulling out a switchblade from his trousers, Leonard digs the tip of the blade into the crack and pulls it open. Just as he suspected, the hidden compartment flicks open and the detective and his partner investigate the stash of drugs. 

“What is it?” Raymond tries to peer over Leonard’s shoulder, but his vision is obscured as Leonard reaches in and pulls the box out of the bottom of the stove. 

Small, equivalent to a half-size tissue box, the black container holds a rolled-up plastic bag. Within the bag, are what Leonard can only guess is about 100 green and black pills. 

“Vertigo,” Leonard mutters.

He should know. After an unpleasant meeting with the Count himself, Leonard remembers finding himself going on one of the weirdest drug trips he’s experienced. Unwilling of course, Leonard hates putting this poisonous stuff inside his body, but when you've been force-fed a pill, there’s not much you do, especially when you get gut-punched and the pill is thrown down your throat immediately afterwards. 

Looking back in the back, Leonard spots wads of cash, bills ranging from twenties to hundreds, stacked and flowing. He scoops it up and stuffs it in his jacket, uncaring of the disapproving look Raymond gives him.

“Today’s Tuesday, right?” Leonard tosses the bag over in his hands and examines for any clues as to how old this supply might be. 

He knows that Vertigo has a limited lifespan, usually a week and a half. He’s heard the theorised costs of developing a batch of these drugs, and the selling price, which is higher because of the rarity of this product. What he’s holding in his hand could be well over a dozen grand if it was still viable. 

“Yeah, why?” Raymond responds, stepping back and giving Leonard the room to stand up.  
Leonard’s confused expression meets Raymond’s, “Something’s not right.”

Pocketing the bag of drugs in his pocket, making a mental note to get the crime lab to get on this quickly when he gets back to the station, Leonard pushes past Raymond and back to the CSI. 

“Send me your findings when you get back to the precinct. Where’s the lady who found this guy?”

Leonard is directed to the next apartment over, and with a call out to Raymond to hurry along, he knocks on the door of apartment 36. 

He hears light footsteps approach the door. A body presses against the door and peers through the peephole to the two cops. 

“SCPD, Detective Snart,” Leonard lazily lifts up his badge in one hand, “Here about your neighbour.”

The single deadbolt is slid backwards and the door is unlocked from inside. A lack of oil on the hinges is obvious when they creak and squawk open. 

Without even looking behind him, he can feel Raymond turn away, a high chance of blushing cheeks rising on his face at the sight in front of them. 

Not exactly naked, but with how close to pointless most of her clothing is, she might as well be. Her bra is just two two-inch pieces of red fabric covering her small breasts, connected by red string. And the partially see-through red panties are almost just as revealing. 

Leonard minds no attention to the outfit, although he does note the sickly skinniness of the woman, the obvious signs of her ribs and the flat stomach, speaks either a lack of food, drug consumption, or a combination of both. But her legs are long and smooth, and her face has a soft and attractive smile to it.

There’s also something else that catches his eye. Right underneath her right breast, is a swelling of purple that sticks out on her pale white flesh. Theories swarm his mind, almost sparking anger inside him, but he doesn’t react, and he successfully composes his mind back to the task on hand. 

“May we come in?” Leonard’s voice is passive and slow.

She remains silent, but nods and turns and leads them inside. Leonard kicks Raymond’s foot to bring him back to attention, a quick glance confirming the blushing cheeks he had suspected would be there. 

The same unsettling narrow entryway leads into a similar apartment as the next. This time, as they are presented with the sight of the couch by the wall, Raymond makes an audible noise of surprise. 

“Simone,” the woman who led them inside speaks to the stark-naked woman on her couch, “Cops.”

Simone, like her friend, is about five foot five, skinny around the waist and pale. They’re both around 19 or 20. Although her breasts are significantly larger than her friends, and most certainly not covered. She reaches over with an audible grunt of complaint and pulls a blanket over herself. An action which sparks a great sigh of relief from Raymond who somehow made his cheeks even redder than before. 

“And your name,” Leonard drawls, watching the bruised woman bring out some glasses and a jug of water. 

“Hannah,” she responds in a soft voice. 

Four glasses of water are poured out by Hannah, who in turns passes two over to Leonard, who passes one over to Raymond. Meanwhile, Hannah returns to the couch and settles down beside her girlfriend and passes over the fourth glass. 

“When did you discover the body of your neighbour?” Leonard dives right into the questioning. 

There’s something he wants to try and find out, and he’s hoping that maybe she’ll be able to shed some light on his hunch. 

“Last night, around 11,” Hannah responds.  
Leonard hums, “Why so late?”

The women look to each other, a shared conversation spoken only through their eyes. 

“We have an arrangement,” Simone speaks up after the brief silence, wrapping the blanket around her tightly, a contrasting difference to the lax and carefree response to be being seen naked in front of cops. She hides herself now, as if ashamed of her body being looked upon. 

Leonard nods and looks at them with a face that tells him they need not say more. He understands the kind of deals and arrangements people need to make to get by in the Glades. He tries to keep an impassive face, one that assures the women he doesn’t judge them for the choices they make. 

“I noticed the smell first, when I opened the door,” Hannah resumes. 

“You live here?” she nods with a dreary face, “And what about Friday or Saturday? Did either of you hear anything next door that sounded suspicious?”

Questions are asked. Answers are given to the best of their abilities, or as much as they are comfortable revealing. Leonard doesn’t press hard for answers, he doesn’t require it. He just needs a few pieces of information to start off with. 

According to the girls, they heard Brendon Hill leave his apartment Saturday afternoon, but they went to a party that same evening, so they never heard if he came back. When they returned late Sunday morning, both of them just assumed he was in his apartment. 

Another piece of information they could give Leonard and Raymond was a schedule of sorts. Supposedly on Saturdays, he tends to head out in the afternoon and return late at night. Then on Sundays, he leaves in the evening and stays out for the entire night. Sleeps throughout the day on Monday, then calls one of the girls over for their arrangement. 

Simone says she’s heard him say that he likes their company because it helps takes the stress off work.

Leonard has inkling suspicions in his head, ones that he can’t quite confirm or deny. Working for the Count would certainly be considered stressful, especially when handling his precious Vertigo. Leonard can definitely accept someone working in that position finding sexual pleasure with Simone or Hannah to be quite relieving. Dealers who receive the bulk package of Vertigo, like the one in Leonard’s pocket right now, need to sell quickly after getting it if they want to make the most money. Every day holding onto the package is money lost, which makes the Count angry. 

So based on the information the girls provided, Leonard begins to think that Saturday night is when Hills picks up the new supply of Vertigo, hides it in that hidden box in the stove, then waits until Sunday night before meeting up with his client and selling it on, handing the money back over to the count before returning to bed and sleeping through the Monday. Monday night is what he thinks would be considered the ‘reward’ night for getting through another week under the Count’s control.

But the drugs weren’t sold Sunday night. And now it’s almost the middle of the day on Tuesday. So why has none of the Count’s men come knocking about Hills not making the sale? 

“Rookie,” Leonard turns to his partner, “Go ask a few of the neighbours if they heard any suspicious activity Saturday night. Meet me downstairs.”

Leonard waits until Raymond leaves the apartment, closing the door behind him before Leonard stands up. The girls cower and try to make themselves small as he approaches and crouches down in front of them. 

“Was it Hills?”

Leonard’s passive voice shifts into a demanding tone, still relatively gentle compared to what it could be, but enough to get the message across. 

“No. It’s fine,” Hannah grabs the other end of the blanket and covers her chest, and the swelling bruise.  
Simone huffs, “It’s not fine. He almost broke your rib last time. I told you the money isn’t worth it.”

Leonard casts a quick glance at Simone before looking back at Hannah, “Has there been worse?”

Hannah says no at the same time Simone says yes. As of now, he trusts Simone, but he understands why Hannah might feel the need to protect this man. These two women may be romantically linked, but it’s clear that their economic lives depend on their use and interest by men with money, and sometimes that needs to come first.

“Why do you care?” Hannah asks, crossing her arms over the blanket obscuring her chest.

Leonard sighs and scratches the brow. Sometimes he asks himself why he keeps getting himself into these situations. Seeing marks, ones he’s all too familiar with, sparks an unrelenting motivation within him to get involved, sometimes against his better judgement. 

“Cause I’d be pretty fucking pissed if the next time I’m back here, is when I’m trying to investigate your death.”

There’s a brief look between them, and Simone looks to Hannah with a hopeful and pleading expression for her to open up and talk. 

“He’s rough,” Hannah admits, “I was late last time because I was feeling sick and that pissed him off. He said I was disrespecting him by not being on time, and he would force me to apologise and promise never to be late again. But he pays a lot of money.”

“He doesn’t deserve you, Hannah,” Simone pleads, reaching over to squeeze the other woman’s hand. 

“How much per session?” Leonard asks. 

“He pays 250 for the one hour each time,” Hannah answer weakly, the shame in her voice as if somehow she thinks he should see her as nothing more than just a common whore. 

But Leonard doesn’t see her that way. He gets her. Life is cruel and unfair, and everybody has to make do with what they can get by with. And people as unfortunate as her who resort to this kind of occupation shouldn’t be shamed for what they do to survive. 

Leonard stuffs his hand in his pocket and retrieves the wad of cash. On a quick glance, there’s at least a couple grand in here. He singles out a grand and stuffs the rest in his pocket. 

“Your neighbour won’t be needing this anymore. I give this to you, if, you tell me his name, where he lives, and the next time he expects you to arrive,” Leonard watches as the eyes dart between the money and himself. 

Leonard gets her to type it down in his phone, looking at it before handing over the money to the pair of them, “And he expects you this Thursday at 8 o’clock?”

Hannah nods. 

“Alright. What about you?” Leonard glances at Simone.  
Simone shakes her head, “I’m good. I work at the club. Henry handles any of the troubling customers.”

He looks to Hannah, who nods and confirms her assurance. He’s met Henry Stan before on another case, and he remembers seeing how the guy took care of his employees. 

“That should count for four weeks of his sessions,” Leonard points to the cash as he begins backing away, “He won’t be bothering you again. Should be plenty of time for you to find someone more deserving of your presence.”

“Thank you,” they say synchronously, giving weak but more importantly, hopeful smiles. 

Leonard stares at the address on his phone and puts it to sleep and stuffs it in his pocket. He nods to the two women, thanks them for the information and exits their apartment, closing the door behind them. 

Raymond is waiting, as told, downstairs. After hearing Raymond inform him that someone did hear commotion on the Saturday night and that there were two suspicious individuals who entered the building not long after Brendon Hills returned, Leonard is confident in his theory. 

Nothing answers Leonard’s question about where the Count’s men, who are meant to make sure the dealers aren’t skimming any money, have gone too. Random street thugs were able to kill off a dealer, and it’s gone unnoticed for over three days? It baffles him, and sends an uneasy feeling down his stomach, as if something more sinister is happening and he just doesn’t know what.

“What’s your problem?” Raymond asks with genuine curiosity, “It’s fewer drugs on the streets, and it means the Count is too weak to look after his own supply. That’s a good thing. They’re the bad guy.”

Leonard huffs at the ignorance of the rookie, “You know what the best thing about organised crime is?”

Raymond shakes his head, looking down slightly to Snart. 

“It’s the organisation.” 

It’s about as simple as Leonard can put it. He only hopes now that this death is just singular and a one-time occurrence, because he dreads to imagine what might happen if more common street thugs start getting ideas and the heads of the organised crime families remain inactive about it. He can already see the beginnings of a deadly power struggle in the Glades, one that he’s not certain many people will survive. 

They make due haste back to the station, Leonard not really enjoying being in possession of such valuable Vertigo in his parka pocket. Especially on streets like the Glades. 

The SCPD precinct in the Glades isn’t glamourous like its counterpart in the rest of the city. A repurposed car factory that had shut down a dozen years ago when the manufacturer found cheaper alternatives in Asian countries to build their vehicles. The large factory floor space allows a comfortable sense of space and openness that the other precinct doesn’t provide. 

Internal Affairs, Narcotics and Gang-related departments occupy the ground floor of the factory, spread out among the different rooms of the factory. The crime lab occupies the four rooms that were once where cars were painted. A lot of sterilisation had to be done to ensure none of the remaining paint particles was going to contaminate the samples they deal with. Holding cells are located in the now repurposed storage rooms. The interrogation rooms are off in the corner of the building.

On the top floor, occupying the offices, is the Homicide, and the Domestic Violence and Sexual Crimes department. The Captain has her own office just behind that. Leonard taps Raymond’s shoulder and instructs him to wait by his desk upstairs while he offloads the Vertigo to the crime lab and requests a detailed report on his desk. 

Making his way upstairs, he looks around for a particular face out of the others. At her desk, standing up and clearly in an argument with whatever suspect she’s trying to get details from, is a red-headed woman. 

Leonard walks over, and the voices of their argument get louder. 

“I promise that things will go much easier if you just give me your bloody real name,” the woman grits through her teeth in frustration. 

She’s been at this for a while, and he can see the awing self-control she exuberates by not punching this guy in his yellow teeth grin. As he gets closer, Leonard sees the signs of dried blood from her nose, and a wave of anger brews like a raging storm inside him.

“You can be charged with obstruction of-” she manages to say before the guy’s head is slammed onto the table. 

Leonard’s hand pins the guys head to the wooden table, hands gripped tightly into the guy’s long hair, providing an easy hold on him, “Did you fucking hit her, asshole?” he looks up to her, “Did he hit you?”

“Snart!” the woman reaches out at Leonard’s arm, trying to pry his hand away from her suspect’s hair, “If I wanted revenge, I’d do it myself!”

Leonard looks at her with the remnants of his anger, softening towards a cool smirk as he rips his hand out of the guy’s hand and shoves the guy back into his seat. 

“Jesus, Snart,” the woman sighs, rubbing a tired hand over her face, “Get to the Captain’s office, she wants to see you. Just go.”

He fixes his gaze on her, her soft golden eyes staring right back at him with exhaustion and a look that tells him she doesn’t want to deal with him right now.

Leonard nods, steps back and raises his hands, open palms towards her as he backs away. 

“Isn’t there a law against beating up suspects?” Raymond looks unimpressed as Leonard swings by the desk.  
“There are no laws in the Glades. Just cops,” Leonard grumbles, a pissed off frown on his face as she crosses the floor to the captain’s office. 

Kimberly Hill is waiting in her office when Leonard knocks and awaits the signal to be permitted entry. 

“You wanted to see me, captain?” Leonard drawls, dropping unceremoniously into a chair opposite the captain’s desk.  
“Annoying Ms Halsey, again?” she looks up at him with a raised eyebrow and the faintest smirk.

Leonard doesn’t comment, simply keeping his gazed locked on the small Newton’s Cradle sitting on his captain’s desk, the clinking sound of the metal occurring just over a second each interval. 

“What have you found?” she returns to the papers on her desk and begins sorting them. 

He thinks she doesn’t really care, just making conversation while she packs up these files before she gets down to whatever she wants him here for. 

“One of the Count’s men are dead. A bag of Vertigo unsold that I just gave to the crime lab,” Leonard retells.  
“A move by one of the other gangs?” Hill casts an intrigued gaze his way.  
Leonard shakes his head, “Doesn’t seem that way. Looks like a bunch of independents who must have followed him home and wanted whatever he had. They didn’t find the Vertigo he stashed. The guy died Saturday night.”

That final sentence really catches the attention of the captain, “And these independents are still alive?”

Leonard shrugs, “The Count hasn’t made any noise about avenging his man.” 

His answer is open-ended and left to the interpretation. An interpretation the both of them are thinking of. There’s a shared glance as they both have this silent wish that their assumptions are wrong.

Hill rises from her desk, grabs the files in her arms and stores them in her filing cabinet, locking it afterwards. 

“I got a new job for you. Just you. Not Palmer. He’s too new.”

“New job?” Leonard drawls, looking at her through the top of his eyes, “This a transfer, captain?”

This time Hill shakes her head, “Additional work. A side case to go on top of your current homicides.”

Leonard grunts. 

“I get it,” Hill leans forward on her desk, elbows on the wooden surface, “It’s a shitty thing and nobody wants to be dealing with extra work these days. But it’s a favour for City Hall.”

He scoffs and crosses his legs at his ankles as he stretches out from the chair, “We do favours for City Hall now? Aren’t they the ones who abandoned us?”

Hill nods, “Yes, but hopefully this favour will spark the beginning of some consideration from them towards us. But technically, this is just you doing the favour. Not SCPD.”

Leonard sighs, “Whatchu got?”

“A little-lost-daughter case,” Hill clicks a button on her computer and Leonard’s phone buzzes with the notification of an email coming through. 

It takes a few seconds, but he whips up the file on his device and does a quick glance. 

“Quentin Lance’s daughter,” Hill says before Leonard can finish scrolling down. 

The name sounds familiar, and it isn’t until he sees the photo of the man himself that the memory resurfaces, “The Chief of Staff’s daughter? Really?”

“The younger daughter,” Hill sighs.

Leonard lets out a deep whistle and continues reading. He doesn’t really know what to think at first glance. For years, even before the Markov device destroyed half the Glades, City Hall had done a pretty fucking good job at distancing itself from the SCPD Glades precinct. All the funds would arrive late or either underpaid. Any contact with City Hall was met with a quick shutdown, so there was little that Captain Hill could accomplish for her officers. 

To hear that they’ve specifically been chosen and communicated with, for a favour of all things, really surprises him. 

“So what’s the deal with this?” Leonard skims down the pages, looking, but not really reading, “They misplaced a daughter and now they want her back?”

“More like a black sheep gone rogue, again,” Hill corrects, “Sara Lance, 27-years-old. Younger sister to Laurel Lance, ADA.”  
“Sara Lance?” Leonard hums.

He’s about to ask why she sounds so familiar to his ears when Hill cuts in with the answer.

“She disappeared years back with Robert and Oliver Queen. She arrived home a year after the young Queen.”  
Leonard smirks, “Suppose I should ask if she was last seen on a boat then.”

Hill chuckles and shakes her head, “No. According to her father, she did a lot of community work when she returned. Most of it in the Glades too, much to her father and sister’s disapproval.”

“But they let her do it for all these years?”  
Hill nods, “Yes.”  
“Now they want her found?" Hill nods, "What changed?” Leonard shifts in his seat, sitting more attentive.  
Hill shrugs, “They saw it unfit to share that reasoning. They just want her found. I can only guess that her actions were harmless to the family’s reputation, so they let her go through this phase of some ‘citizen of the community’ before waiting for her to come to her senses and return to her family. Seems she hasn't done that and now they probably want her back home and finishing university.”

“Okay,” Leonard nods, “So what exactly am I doing with this case?”  
“Find Sara Lance, if she’s still in the Glades, arrest her and return her to her father,” Hill says with such simplicity and calmness that it’s as if the implications of her words do not exist. 

Leonard looks down at his phone, scrolling down the to photo of the smiling, freckled-faced blonde.

“A kidnap job,” Leonard mutters.  
“Yes.”

Now he understands why the rookie isn’t getting involved. He knew working as cop required crossing some lines that many people would be resistant to crossing. Sometimes suspects would have a few injuries by the time they confessed to a crime. Sometimes evidence got lost before reaching the station. And then there were times where a suspect simply would disappear. A lone gunshot heard in the woods just outside the city borders that same night. No one would question. No one would investigate.

But that was the life in the Glades. You don't feel guilt or remorse for doing it because it's the way things are around here. A kidnap job was different. This isn't a matter of surviving to the next day in the Glades. This is a matter of some overprotective father forcing his daughter to come home when she doesn't want to. And he's the tool for the task.

“Don’t spend too much time on this,” Hill says with a sternness that he definitely picks up on, “If she’s not here, end the report and I’ll send it back up the chain. Someone else can deal with the girl.”

Leonard nods and rises from his seat, “Alright.”

So, Sara Lance, huh? Sucks to be her right now, having a father who has the influence to put out a kidnap contract out on his own daughter and force her return home. In all seriousness, Leonard is ready to bring up the file on his phone, and delete it this instance. He doesn’t care about Sara Lance, and he’s not fond of the idea of controlling fathers who believe they have the money and influence to control their families like this. 

In fact, he's certain that he’d be doing this Sara woman a favour by ignoring her case and not intervening. 

Besides, he’s got bigger things to deal with right now. Such as his Thursday night appointment, and the highly concerning matter regarding the unusual silence by the organised crime mob.


	3. Chapter 3

Returning to his desk, where Palmer sits one leg folded over the other and leaning back in the second chair, Leonard drops himself into the other chair. 

“Reprimands from the captain?” Palmer smirks as his attention turns from the men and women walking around the offices, to his partner. 

Leonard shakes his head and presses his lips together in a firm line. His eyes dart around the room, taking in the movements and conversations happening between the other officers, the few suspects and convicts being led to tables where their details were being recorded. His gaze eventually leads back over to the redhead's desk. 

She wears her dark red hair in a messy state. Long, curling down the side of her face and mostly tucked behind her shoulders. But with her body leant forward and head down at the papers on her desk, disobedient and roguish curls droop down in front of her. Breezing air caused by the ceiling fans results in those unruly locks flailing around her face, refusing to stay put when she brushes them off her face. 

Tall and slim, just less than an inch shorter than Leonard, her body captivates his attention all too often. Her height and fitness, along with Raymond he must admit, makes them both stand out as attractive individuals among others in the Glades. But unlike Raymond, who’s new to the force and most certainly not from the Glades, Alexa Halsey is Glades, born and raised, and has been a cop for the last six years since she was 23.

“Write up the report for me, will ya?” Leonard taps the desk in front of Raymond and slides over a pen from his stationery holder, “List what we found in the apartment. Empty boxes, the Vertigo. And make sure to write up all the statements you got from the other neighbours about the Saturday night.”  
Raymond looks at Leonard with a raised eyebrow, “And what about the money you found?”

Leonard smirks down at Raymond after rising to his feet, “What money?”

Palmer sighs, and Leonard can tell that it’s going to take some time for this rookie to accept the way things are done here in the Glades. He can see that this guy is a stickler for the rules just by the repulsion on his face that he’s seen so far. Unfortunately, rules don’t fucking matter in the Glades, and Leonard just hopes that it’s a lesson quickly learnt and accepted before he does something stupid. 

There’s a sense of mystery with Raymond Palmer too. For the first time in over eight years, a rookie actually asked to be stationed in the Glades district of the force. Leonard toys with the idea of trying to find out an answer, but his self-preservation instincts tell to ignore it and leave it a mystery unsolved. Still, Palmer has only been around for two days, and if the guy wants to tell him why he chose to work in this shithole, Leonard’s not going to stop him. 

Leonard weaves through the desks and slows his approach as he approaches Alexa’s desk. Golden eyes move from the paperwork, and the loose hair drifts over her face as her head lifts. The blood stain around her nose is gone with almost no trace of it ever being there except for a tiny red dot just above her lips. 

He’s met with an unimpressed expression, one that he most certainly expected after his recent stunt. He remains silent, propping himself on the corner of her desk and picking up the foam stress-ball in his hand and squeezing it a few times. 

“You always have to fidget, don’t you?” Alexa sighs, eyes staring at the foam ball as if they might somehow speak and provide an answer for Leonard’s need to fidget. 

Leonard pouts at the comment and puts the ball back on her desk. His hands don’t know what to do next, and he almost starts strumming them against the wooden table in a tune, but he forces them into a fist and refrains himself. 

“Something feel wrong about the Glades lately?” Leonard asks, his gaze darting across the room for a few seconds before he turns his head to look her squarely in the eyes.  
“Not even an apology?” Alexa mocks.

Leonard flashes an apologetic smile, “He did hit you,” he tries to justify.  
“And I don’t need you defending me,” Alexa pokes his leg with a quick jab, “when I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself. Who do you think brought him into the station?”

Leonard smirks and nods his head, accepting once again that he screwed up and his ‘chivalry’ was not appropriate. But when it comes to her, he just can’t help it. 

“What do you think is wrong?” she speaks, referring to his initial question.  
The uneasy feeling in his stomach returns, “The Count is unusually quiet. And one of his men are dead, but there have been no signs of a revenge attempt or acknowledgement of it by the Count.”

Alexa nods, holds her hand together in front of her on the desk and looks deep in thought. 

“I heard from the Vice boys that a few of their informants have vanished in the last week,” Alexa reveals, “Not many. Just a few. At first, it sounded like the gangs were just killing off their moles, but if the Count is silent, then maybe it’s something else.”

“Jeremy still has a crush on you right?” Leonard looks in the direction of where he figures Jeremy’s desk would be on the ground floor, but there’s a wall in the way so he can’t tell if the officer is at his desk or not. 

Alexa grins and bats her eyelashes at him, “You considering a threesome, Len?”  
He pretends to ignore her, “See if he’s heard anything about the mob bosses themselves. Where they are, what they’re doing recently.”  
“Right away, sir,” she gives a mock salute and lifts her chin high, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

A devilish smirk forms on his face and he doesn’t even try to hide the hunger in his eyes, “I’ll think of something.”  
“I look forward to it,” Alexa responds, a similarly lustful look behind her own eyes as Leonard pushes himself off the desk.  
“Let me know what you find,” his hand patting her fist as he leaves. 

He returns back to his desk to find Raymond still writing up the report. 

“So are you two together or not?” Raymond says, looking up from the papers just as Leonard drops back into his seat. 

“Something in between,” Leonard’s vague answer is the best Ray’s going to get out of him. 

And the response is not solely based on the reluctance that Leonard has about talking of his love life. For the most part, something in between, is quite an accurate description. An on-off relationship, where for the off-parts, they sometimes try to look for someone else to be with. More often than not, however, those off-parts don’t last long, or they don’t work out, and the two of them fall back to each other and pick things up where they left off like nothing ever happened. 

“Come on,” Leonard sighs and pulls a bunch of files from the holder on his desk, “There’s a bunch of open cases that you need to be caught up on.”

Until the end of their work day, Leonard can only watch with interest at how insightful Raymond is. He quickly gets through the open cases, asking Leonard the right kind of questions that help fill in the blanks where the reports don’t provide answers. 

As for the paperwork, well, Leonard has not seen someone into doing paperwork so diligently before. Leonard was going to just play the hard mentor and make Raymond do the paperwork, but he didn’t even have to, because Raymond was more than happy to be doing all the formalities. 

Leonard is certain that Raymond’s talents are being wasted here in the Glades. 

Sara Lance is forgotten of by the end of the day, having not entered Leonard’s train of thought once since stepping out of the captain’s office. 

XXX

Dreams. No, scratch that. Nightmares of his father and sister haunt him that night. The causation of such vivid imaginations eludes him, but their resurgence provides a startling reminder at how horrifying and dreadful they’ve always been. 

His body courses with a wave of fear and he wakens with the feeling of sweat along his body and stuck with rapid shallow breaths until he forces himself back into control.

“Len?” Alexa stirs sleepily beside him, her voice just a tired whisper in the dark of the night, “Ev’rything ‘kay?”

The voice beside him catches him off-guard, as his brain starts trying to discern fiction from reality. He remembers that he had walked Alexa home that afternoon, and she asked him if he wanted to stay for dinner. One thing led to another and here they are.

Leonard lets out a deep breath, forcing his eyes open and providing him with the certainty that he’s back in reality, “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. I’m good.”

A double meaning behind those words, one of reassurance to Alexa, and one to himself, the latter admittedly taking the primary intent. 

Leonard turns his head to the side, looking at the peaceful and resting face of the woman beside him. Those red curls, messy as usual, appear black in the darkness, obscuring parts of her face from his view. Her breaths, slow and steady in her tired state, act as a gentle breeze as it blows against the hair, hovering it over her face before falling back. A singular digit brushes against her smooth cheek, hooking the curls in its path and pushing them behind her head and out of her face. 

“You sure?” her voice has an air of concern amongst the tired slurs.  
Leonard rests the back of his fingers on her cheek and rubs it gently, “Yeah. I’ll be back. Just going to get some air.”

She hums a sweet little jingle before snuggling herself back into the pillows and blanket, allowing the warmth they provide to combat against the cold chilling breeze that tries to penetrate through the walls of their apartment. 

Leonard slides himself off the bed, taking a few moments to allow his eyes to adjust to the dark light before he attempts to walk anywhere and risk knocking into something. Her apartment is on the small side, just like his and probably everyone else’s in the Glades. The only differences are the personal touches that stop each apartment from looking like spartan duplicates. 

He finds his way back to the kitchen, sliding himself onto the stool by the kitchen counter and resting his head in his hands, elbows pressed into the hard surface of the bench. 

Phantom pain lingers on his body, the cuts across his chest flaring as nerves fail not to remind of its existence. Why had the nightmares returned? He remembers that it’s been years since he last had them, and now they’re back? For a few moments, his mind considers the mere presence of them a bad omen, as if they signify a warning of something dreadful in the near future. 

Thoughts bounce around in his head, scrambling for anything that might provide an explanation for their presence. He sits and ponders for a few minutes, yet nothing comes to mind. Nothing aside of the normal sticks out to him, and he’s left with this unresolved question that sits uneasily inside him. A familiar feeling that he can’t quite remember. 

“It was probably those girls,” he mutters to himself. 

Sure. That sounds reasonable enough to his head. When he saw that purple mark underneath her breast, he was most certainly reminded of similar images of his sister when she was younger at the complete mercy of their unmerciful father. He ignores the fact that sights like this are common amongst people in the Glades, and this wouldn’t be the first time he’s intervened in an unofficial domestic or sexual violence crime. And he ignores the fact that besides the first time when he had just move to Star City, none of those instances had resulted in the resurgence of these nightmares. 

Leonard returns to bed about half an hour later, taking the time to recompose himself and ensure those dreams don’t come back for a second serving. He doesn’t mind standing by the window, where the cold manages to seep through the glass and into the room, but when he crawls under the covers and returns to the warmth it, and Alexa, provides, he allows himself to melt into it before falling back to sleep. 

Sleep is undisturbed, and the nightmares are kept at bay for the remainder of the night. 

XXX

Annoyingly, there’s another protest on the streets on the streets while Leonard and Alexa walk to the station. 

“How’s the new guy?” Alexa shivers in her coat as they both feel a cold blast of air rush down the street in the opposite direction to theirs. 

Leonard smiles, “Good. Nice to be able to avoid doing paperwork for a while. But he holds too much belief in his morals. He’s not going to last long if he doesn’t accept that the world works differently to the way his head wants it to.”

“Some would say that your pessimism is why the world will never work the way he wants it to,” Alexa points out, a touch of smugness in her tone.  
“Oh yeah?” Leonard drawls, “Let me flip that pessimistic switch and join those protestors. I’m sure I’ll make a difference.”

Alexa shakes her head at his sarcastic tone, “All it takes is enough people at the same time to believe they can make a difference for something to actually happen.” 

Leonard huffs, unable to find a suitable counter against her annoyingly solid argument, “Yeah, well. Doesn’t change the fact that the rookie needs to get off his moral high-horse. The guy doesn’t look like he’s broken a single law in his entire life. You’d think he’s a boy scout or something.”

“You know he was an eagle scout, right?” Alexa asks.

“Really?” Leonard hums at the revelation when Alexa nods, “Explains a lot.”

She’s accustomed to Leonard usually being so aware of people’s details, that it takes her by surprise that he remains so unaware of his own partner. 

A chuckle breaks out from her, “You seriously didn’t read your own partner’s file?”

Leonard grins, “No, but I’m sure glad you did, because now you can catch me up.”

Alexa lets out an annoyed sigh, nudging him with her shoulder to make her disappointment apparent. For the rest of their walk to the precinct, Leonard listens attentively as Alexa rattles off information about Raymond Palmer. 

Admittedly, Leonard didn’t even consider reading his partner’s file. He told himself there was little point in learning about someone who would probably only be around for a few weeks. Alexa’s jab at his pessimistic view on the world rings true in this situation once more, because even before Raymond showed up at his partner, Leonard had already prepared himself for the rookie’s death. 

It was easy for Leonard to do that. Guiltless too. He’d already seen so much loss and suffering in the Glades, that he always looked for ways to ensure he could avoid feeling it himself. Not reading Raymond Palmer’s file was one of those ways. It never made it personal, never made Raymond Palmer a real person in Leonard’s view. He had learnt that it made dealing with loss easier if you never allowed the attachment to form in the first place. 

But something about Raymond’s personality that he witnessed yesterday, and maybe the idea of having someone around to do his paperwork whenever, gives Leonard the desire to learn more about his new partner. It’s a big step for him, getting to know his new partner with the high risk that something might happen to him. 

By the time they reach the station, Leonard has heard an interesting tale, and sheds a bit of light on Raymond Palmer. He comes from a rich family, went to university and earned numerous PHD’s in his studies. He was on track to join his twin brother, Sydney Palmer, in starting up their own tech company. But something, not documented in his file, happened and he stopped. Then a few months later, he entered into the police academy and passed through it with flying colours. He was going to be the rookie for one of the SCPD’s best detectives, but he refused, and insisted he work in the Glades, and now he finds himself under Leonard’s guide. 

“He’s quite handsome,” Alexa drags out, “Maybe even more so than you, Len.”  
Leonard laughs, “He wouldn’t be able to handle you.”

Alexa applies a bit more force to her shoulder bump than her earlier one, resulting in Leonard almost stumbling and tripping over his own feet at the sudden change in momentum. 

She giggles at his scowl and they resume the walk to the precinct. If anybody asks, which they won’t, they most certainly did not duck into a nearby side alley and quickly make out against the wall before reaching the precinct. Leonard's hand most certainly did not find themselves enthralled with her breasts, and her hand had most certainly not found its way down the back of his pants. No. Not at all. 

They part ways upon reaching the second floor, heading to their respective desks, where Leonard finds Raymond already present. When he gets to his desk, Leonard is disgusted by the sight. 

“Did you fucking colour code my files?” Leonard stands cross-armed, glaring at the coloured tags on the documents on his desk. 

Raymond turns around and has this proud smile on his face, “Oh yes. See, each colour here represents what information is currently known within the case. Take our case from yesterday. We have blue here to represent the cause of death, green to represent a known timeframe, and yellow to indicate that witness statements have been taken. What’s missing is red, which is for suspects, which we have none so far. Something I designed to make recalling what we know about a case just like that,” he clicks his fingers to emphasise his point. 

“And then this one,” Ray slides over another one of Leonard’s old cases, “We have the red tag for potential suspects, and a blue tag for cause of death, but there’s no known time frame or witnesses to pin the suspect to the crime.”

Leonard wants to be angry. He wants to shout at this guy for touching his stuff and for thinking that something like fucking colour coding is acceptable. But he isn’t. In fact, he can’t find any reason, other than his own frustration that he didn’t come up with this system himself, to be angry at Raymond. Leonard is all for making things short and simple, and this colour coding, as childish and lame as he wants to treat it, makes organising cases short and simple. 

Leonard lets out a defeated sigh, any intent of anger or frustration releasing from his body in that action. As he normally does, he drops into his chair and slouches back, his head leaning over the backrest and staring up at the ceiling. Out of the corner of his gaze, he can see Raymond sitting with a proud smirk on his face. 

“Thanks,” Leonard mumbles with reluctance, “And don’t get used to it.”

About ten minutes later, time in which Leonard reads through some of the notes that Raymond has made about some of the older cases, some of which are pretty good theories, a new case comes in for them. 

“Come on boy scout,” Leonard groans as he rises to his feet, “Let’s see what body dropped for us today.”  
“Actually, it’s eagle scout,” Raymond points out, “I earned all my boy scout badges and moved into the eagle scouts when I was-”  
“Shut up,” Leonard turns around and clenches his fist in the air between them, a gesture that demands a cessation of talking. 

They leave the station in silence, Leonard casting a small wink as they pass Alexa on their way out. The relatively centralised location of the precinct in the Glades makes getting anywhere quite easily. Usually, it’s just a matter of point in a direction and walk towards it, sticking to the main streets and footpaths as much as possible. 

Whilst Leonard and Alexa may have been daring enough to duck into a side alley for some frisky, pre-shift action, Leonard really doesn’t like going in alleys when he can help it. Too much bad shit goes on in those alleys. Someone’s either getting mugged, raped, or been left for dead beside a dumpster. It’s the grim reality of the Glades, where shit like this is far too common. 

They’re approaching the address of their latest body when Leonard spots a familiar face standing at a bus stop just a few dozen meters down the road. The rusted metal has lost most of its painting, the shelter missing the glass barrier, having either been destroyed or more likely stolen as someone’s window. The metal bench is more black than natural silver with the amount of spray paint that its been covered with. 

Leonard taps Raymond’s arm with the back of his hand, “I’ll just be a minute.”

Leonard casually strolls over to the bus stop, the other male still unaware of his presence. The guy has short black hair, which looks like it hasn’t been washed in weeks. There’re tattoos along the back of his neck, disappearing further down behind his shirt, reappearing beyond the sleeves of his shirt. He’s tall and lanky, barely any muscle on his body. 

Pretending to be minding his own business, Leonard clips the side of the tall guy with some force. 

“Hey, watch it!” the guy snaps, a flash of anger of his face as he turns to the perpetrator of his disturbance, except it vanishes when he realises who it is, “Oh, Mr Snart?”  
“I didn’t see you there David,” Leonard drawls, turning back to face the man he shoulder checked. 

David raises a disbelieving eyebrow at Leonard’s statement. This guy knows exactly why Leonard made his presence known. 

“How’s the art collecting business going?” Leonard drawls raising his volume slightly higher so the other people waiting for their bus can overhear him clearly.  
“Wonderful, thank you for asking,” David grits through teeth, closing the gap between Leonard and himself until there’s only a hand’s width apart. 

A space occupied by Leonard’s open palm, quietly waiting and expecting in front of his stomach. The expected paper bills are thrust into his hand. 

“There. Just keep your voice down,” grits David, darting a glance around him, noting Raymond standing a few meters behind the station against a shop window.  
Leonard nods and returns with a pleased smirk, “Wonderful. Glad to hear it’s going well.”

David frowns, a silent scowl as he watches Leonard turn around and head back to his partner. 

Raymond is also frowning, but his motives originate from the other side of the same proverbial coin.  
Leonard has no intention of trying to justify his actions, rather, he just fixes Raymond a look that tells him not to say a word. Besides, this is one of the more harmless arrangements that Leonard has around the town. David simply collects and distributes forged artwork as part of a scamming business, so there’s nothing to worry about. The steroids being distributed at the local gym, which Leonard is paid to turn a blind eye towards whenever he goes there, is probably the most harmful out of the bunch. He supposes he should be grateful for that, knowing how much worse it could be. 

They reach the address, arriving at what appears to be a convenience store. 

From the window looking into the corner store, Leonard can see the splatter of blood against the back wall and counter. A uniform officer is standing outside, warding off all citizens from inside the building. Leonard’s hand subconsciously reaches for his holster as the door to the store opens and they are permitted entry. The small jingle of the bell over the door sounds out of place in the presence of death. 

Another uniform officer is inside, standing beside the store owner and another male whose eyes are puffy red and cheeks stained with dried tears. Leonard walks down one aisle, avoiding the blood splatter. When they reach the end of the aisle and approach the cashier’s desk, they look down the next aisle and see the body. 

A brunette woman, probably in her mid-30’s by Leonard’s guess. Plainclothes, a light pink shirt with light cream shorts. Unfortunately, the crimson blood stains stand out like shitty patching on tattered clothing, contrasting heavily against the lighter tone of the original colour. 

“What’s the story?” Leonard asks the officer. 

He’s already got a theory in his head, but he likes to have the information first before he starts going off on just his own thoughts. 

“About an hour ago, someone came in here with a gun and demanded the teller to hand over money. According to the victim’s husband, he and his wife entered just after, unaware of what was going on inside,” the officer explains. 

Leonard nods, “And let me guess, the guy freaked out when people came up from behind him?”  
The officer nods, “That’s what the witnesses describe happened.”

Leonard crouches down behind the CSI looking past their shoulder and at the body lay supine on the floor. Looked to Leonard like a case of wrong place, wrong time. One of the universe’s cruel and unfair ways of death. 

Senseless, and utterly extraordinary and depressing at the same time. 

Out of every possible moment in time and space, two different people’s lives intersect in just right way, that they lead to this very fatal moment. Leonard often wonders how many homicides have occurred or been adverted simply because of how their lives have directed them to where they are now. How many times has Leonard been minutes away from certain death, only to dodge it by getting ahead of or behind the danger? 

They are questions which Leonard chooses not focus too much of his thoughts on, but their presence always lingers in the back of his mind and ready to come forth when relevant situations like this occur. 

“Hey boy scout,” Leonard calls over his shoulder, “Ask for the security footage. Should be something good on-”

When Leonard turns around to look at Raymond, he goes silent at the sight. Raymond Palmer, this cheery, colour coding, rule stickler boy scout, has a murderous look on his face that sends shivers down Leonard’s spine. Never has he seen such an expression look so wrong on a person’s face before. The kind of wrong that would have Leonard ensuring that expression never makes its way onto Raymond’s face ever again if he can help it.

Leonard rises to his feet quickly, pushing past the uniform officer and towards Raymond, placing a hand on the guy’s back and directing down the next aisle. 

“Hey,” Leonard whispers, trying to keep his voice low, “What’s going on?”

Raymond’s expression barely falters when he looks to Leonard, the anger and murderous intent still present and making Leonard feel uncomfortable under such scrutiny. 

“Raymond,” Leonard tries to break the guy’s focus and bring back to reality.

He tries one more time, a harsh tone through gritted teeth, and Raymond’s expression recedes, and a look of guilt takes its place. 

“Sorry,” Raymond coughs, taking a step away from Leonard and leaning against one of the metal racks.  
“You good pal?” Leonard lets out a weak laugh, hoping that it does something to spark a bit of cheer within his partner, “Looked like you were going to kill someone back there.”

“I’m fine,” Raymond shifts awkwardly. 

Leonard raises a sceptical eyebrow and gives his partner a chance to reconsider his answer. 

Raymond sighs, “I mean, I will be fine. Soon. I just need some time.”

Leonard won’t ask what the problem is, but he figures that if it provokes such a reaction like that, maybe he should try and find out some information about it when he has the time. 

Leonard pats Raymond squarely on the pat and gives a firm nod, “Alright. That’s good. Why don’t you go and gather the video footage from the back? I’ll handle the witnesses and the scene. Okay?”

Raymond agrees and has the manager of the store lead him into the back of the shop and where the security camera footage is stored. 

Meanwhile, Leonard returns to the other isle and gets a rundown from the CSI. He spends the next few minutes talking to the witnesses, gathering as much detail about the perpetrator as he can in case the security camera footage wasn’t able to get a good picture of him. 

Raymond returns with a small USB, walking past the aisle with the deceased woman in it without giving it even a glance. Leonard notices how much Palmer is trying to keep it together, to keep that anger at bay. The inner detective in him starts spouting out theories, seeing links where maybe there aren’t any. He tries not to let those thoughts occupy too much of his mind. He still has a job to do, and this personal problem with Palmer can be solved later. 

Half an hour later, they return back to the precinct after a trip of silence. Like Raymond’s mood, the skies had turned dark and grey, and the rumbling of thunder could be heard on the other side of the city. A quick check on the weather app told Leonard that the weather was travelling in their direction and would likely be here by nightfall. 

It was something about the circumstances of this case that was troubling Raymond. At least, that’s what Leonard had pieced together. When Snart started the playback of the recording, and the pair of them sat in front of the small monitor and watched the footage, he could feel the returning anger come back to Raymond as the video continued playing, until just before the murder, Raymond excused himself and left.

Leonard sat back in his chair, pausing the video and keeping his eyes trained on the back of his partner who weaved through the desks before vanishing out of sight and back to ground level. Yeah. It was definitely something to do with the victim, or at least how she died. 

“Everything okay with your partner?” he felt two hands slide across his shoulder and collarbone before a head poked around to his view. 

Red curls fell to one side of her face as she leant around him. 

“No,” Leonard shakes his head, his hand crossing over his chest and reaching her hand on his shoulder, rubbing hers softly, “Something about this new case is personal for him. It’s got him fired up.” 

“You gonna help him?” Alexa asks.  
Leonard shrugs, “I want to give the guy some space. Let him try and sort it out on his own. He doesn’t improve by the end of the day, then I’ll see what I can do.”  
“Aww,” Alexa snuggles her head against Leonard’s, “You are a big softy, aren’t you?”

Leonard makes a disgusted grunt, prying her hand off his shoulder and giving her an unimpressed look. She only smiles and taunts as she walks back to her desk. 

XXX

Raymond didn’t return for the rest of the day. Leonard got a text sometime after lunch from him saying that he’d returned home. There was a long apology to go with it, but no part of it gave any further clue or indication as to what put Raymond in that mood. 

Leonard thought it was a good idea for the guy to stay home for the rest of the day. Better to cool off in your own time and where you feel comfortable, rather than trying to do while at work. 

The rain had hit the city by dinner. Lightning was striking out across the skies, bringing light far greater than that of the pitiful orange tone of the street lamps. Alexa had already returned back to her apartment, making a break for it when the storm had receded partially. 

Leonard stayed back at the precinct for a bit longer, making the final touches to today’s case. All four coloured tags were relevant for this one. 

A suspect was able to be identified thanks to the video footage. In some twisted way, the only reason he was able to get a look at the perpetrator was because the woman and her husband walked into the store. The guy had so far managed to hide his face from the cameras, having likely done some mild planning beforehand, and right up until he tried to leave, his face would have remained off the cameras. 

When he found his exit path blocked by the husband, the one which would have avoided the cameras, Leonard could tell the guy was starting to freak out. The guy clearly hadn’t prepared for the plan to go off the rails, and in his attempt at trying to escape, he found himself blocked in by the husband and the wife. Even without audio, it was clear that everyone was starting to panic. 

Leonard watched as the woman fell to the ground, the blood spraying against the wall as it exited her spine. The killer turned and looked around in shock at his own action, and it was that action which allowed his face to be captured on the cameras. 

An identity was able to be derived from that later in the day, and Leonard had sent uniforms to hunt him down and bring him in. They had arrived about an hour before the storm arrived, and Leonard decided he would save the questioning for after the storm. He figured it’d be nice to let the guy squirm in the dark with a raging storm outside for the night. Should give him some time to reconcile his crimes. 

Leonard was just about to head home, it now being almost 8 in the evening, when his phone lit up with the caller idea of a barman he knows. 

“Snart here,” Leonard puts the phone to his head.  
“Hey Snart, it’s John,” the barman replies, “Look. I think I have your rookie here in my bar. He doesn’t look too good. Should I keep serving him?”

Oh. This is not how Leonard imagined things turning out with Raymond. Seemed that this case was far more personal and challenging for him to get over than Leonard had thought it would be. 

“Uh,” Leonard scratches his chin as he tries to decide what to do, “Keep serving, but weaken the drinks. Let him run on the placebo for a bit. I’ll be there soon.”  
“You got it Snart,” John confirms, and the call ends with a sharp click. 

“Damn it, Raymond. You had to pick that bar,” Leonard groans, grabbing his parka from his chair and sliding himself into it.

Leonard is familiar with the bar John runs. It’s called The Deville, frequented by petty scum and thieves who most likely paying for drinks and food with money that is not of their own. But on the occasion, he’s heard that some of the gangsters tend to show up for a few drinks. Hopefully, with it being a Wednesday night, and in the middle of a storm, there shouldn’t be any gangsters who find themselves in the presence of a lone, drunken rookie and decide to take advantage of it. 

Thankful for the hoodie on his parka, Leonard steps out into the rain and heads in the direction of the bar as fast as he can without risking slipping over in the rain. His attention is on high alert whenever he passes any alley, the fear of something coming out from the rain and dark. 

It takes a bit over 15 minutes, but Leonard pushes the door of The Deville open and slides back his hoodie. He shrugs of his parka, shaking the water loose just outside the door before closing it behind him and looking for Raymond at the bar. 

As he noted earlier, Palmer’s height makes him stick out above the crowd, which is fortunately quite few tonight. On a quick glance, Leonard doesn’t see any members of the organised crime families, but there are a few street thugs that he spots in the corner booth. Leonard ducks his gaze, knowing that one wrong look can get you killed in places like this. 

Leonard weaves his way around the tables and stools and approaches the bar, giving a small wave to John before saddling into the seat beside Raymond. 

Raymond, sensing the new presence beside him, turns and looks ready to fight whoever it may. But when his eyes settle on Leonard, that anger once again fades, and the same look of guilt he had back in the store returns to his face. 

“Oh hey Snart,” Raymond slurs, “What are you doing here?”  
Leonard shrugs and gestures for John to get him a drink, something non-alcoholic tonight, “Decided to get a drink with my partner. Should have told me you were going out tonight.”  
“Sorry,” he mumbles, the almost empty glass in his hand, held only by a loose grip, “And sorry for ditching you all day.”

Leonard waves a dismissive hand, “Don’t worry about it. Case is solved. We got the guy in custody. Letting him stir in the holding cells while the storm passes for the night. We’ll officially charge him tomorrow.”

Leonard’s drink arrives, and he takes a short swig of the soda water. Silence lingers between them for a few minutes, Leonard signalling to John to cut off the drinks. He doesn’t ask how much Raymond spent on alcohol. 

“Her name was Anna.”

Raymond’s voice is so quiet and slurred that Leonard wasn’t even sure he heard it. When his mind picks up on it, and his brain takes note of the tense at which he referred to this woman, he listens with attention. 

“She was beautiful. She had this laugh that you just couldn’t help but join in with.”

Leonard just hums and nods, letting Raymond know he’s listening. 

“Never before, had I met such a kind soul. She was selfless, passionate about helping others. She would give the clothes off her back for those who needed it.”

Leonard takes another sip of his soda water. 

“She used to work at the homeless shelter. You know that place near the markets?”  
“Yeah,” Leonard responds. 

“She was coming home one day from there, stopping into a store to pick up something for dinner. I don’t even remember what she had said was going to pick up. I waited for her to get back, sitting at home for what felt like hours. Then I started to worry, and that’s when I phoned her. But she didn’t pick up. Instead, it was this cop, telling me that I should come down the store.”

Leonard winces as the final piece of the puzzle slides into place. His reaction to today’s case suddenly sat clear in his mind. 

“They said it was just the wrong place, wrong time. That had she been there a minute earlier or later, she would have been fine.”

“That’s why you became a cop,” Leonard says quietly.  
“Yeah.”  
“Did they catch the guy?”  
Raymond nods, “Someone tackled him after he ran out of the store. Kept him restrained until the cops showed up.”

Whether it’s Leonard letting the information sink into his head, or Raymond remembering it himself, they sit in silence for a few more minutes. 

“Anna always helped people, so I figured that by being a cop, I could help others too. That maybe I could make the Glades a better place.”

Leonard withholds the laugh in his chest. It’s a wishful and optimistic dream to have, but Leonard only wishes he met this guy sooner, so he could convince him to stay away and go somewhere else, because his dream is never coming true. 

“Come on,” Leonard slides off the chair, putting his parka back on and gesturing for Raymond to follow him, “Let’s get you home.”

Raymond is reluctant, but stumbles off the chair and has be supported by Leonard, lest he trips over his own feet and fall face first into the floor. 

They amble out the bar and back onto the street, Leonard gives a small nod of thanks to John for calling him over. The rain is still beating down with the same ferocity it was on his way over. 

“How’s that side case going?” Raymond’s voice has lost a bit of the slur, having consumed less alcohol now.  
“Side case?” 

Ray gives Leonard a curious look, “Yeah? Some supersecret side case from the captain.”  
Leonard pauses for a moment as he racks his brain, “Oh yeah. The mayor’s Chief of Staff lost his daughter and wants her found. Haven’t touched it.”

“Why not?”

Leonard shrugs, “It’s a bullshit job.”  
“So what? She ran from home and you gotta find her, report her back to her father?”

“I have to arrest her, and this girl ain’t a minor. She’s an adult.”

Ray makes a surprised noise, “And you’re okay with that?”

Leonard figures that Ray’s tone is meant to offend him. The guy’s drunk, and he’s got plenty of reason to suspect that Leonard would be the kind of guy with no problem doing a kidnap job. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s not the case.”

“It’s my job.”

“But that’s not even legal. That’s not a job for a cop,” Raymond exclaims, “That just makes you a bounty hunter! That just makes you a tool for some father who thinks he has the power and money to get people to do whatever he wants!”

“Her father is the kind of person who has the power and money to get people to do whatever he wants,” Leonard counters, “And anyway, I told you it was a bullshit case. It’s why I haven’t touched it.”

It’s at this point when their phones ping the sound of a text coming through with high urgency. They find a dry spot under the hanging roof of a nearby store and pull out their phones. 

“What does it say?” Ray asks.

It takes Leonard a moment to realise he’s probably too drunk and his vision is too blurry to make out what the text says. 

Unfortunately, Leonard can read it perfectly fine, and his heart stops when he reaches the end of the text. Shit. This is not good. 

“Let’s just get you home. Just, uh, stay at home tomorrow okay. Don’t go anywhere until I call you,” Leonard orders. 

Ray looks at him with a bit of scepticism, but in his drunken state, he complies and accepts the request. 

They make the trip back to Raymond’s apartment, departing ways at the front door of the building. Leonard doesn’t even take note of how this building looks like it has decent apartments to live in because his mind is too focused on the text. 

That bad omen he thought his nightmares were hinting to, finally revealed itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have read the book/watched the show, the plot/progression will be fairly similar in this work. The differences I'm trying to make are the character relationships and experiences, and how they evolve from those experiences.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uni has just started up again for me this week, so as the semester goes on, updates will probably be getting lesser and lesser. I do find writing nice for giving me a break from reading textbooks and doing assignments, so hopefully, I'll find it in me to continue going with this. 
> 
> The story rating is Explicit for a reason. In addition to the dark themes, there's a tiny bit of smut right before the end. 
> 
> I said this story was going to be dark and gritty, and it's only going to keep getting darker the more it goes on.

Fuck, this isn’t good. 

Any sense of carefulness in his movement as he avoids puddles and tries to keep himself dry have all been ignored as soon as Raymond was inside his apartment. He can hardly hear the sound of his own pounding footsteps on the pavement over the sound of the harsh winds and heavy rainfall. Raindrops obscure his vision, the wind battering into his face as he runs against the current. 

What kind of bullshit List is this? The Markov Device was one thing, but this? Who was the fucking idiot that came up with shit? 

Leonard fumbles with his phone as he tries to put in the number for a call while drops of rain obscure his screen. 

He puts the phone to his ear, feeling the water droplets trickle off the phone and down the side of his face. 

“Did you see it?” Alexa’s voice comes over the phone.  
“Yeah,” Leonard manages to rebalance himself as he slides through a large puddle, “I’m heading back to the precinct. How far away are you?”  
“I’ve just left now,” Alexa answers, “What about your partner?”

Leonard shakes his head, realising it’s a pointless gesture until after he’s done it, “He needs to stay home. Too dangerous.”  
“Alright. Stay safe,” Alexa says with demanding tone, “I’ll see you soon.”

The call ends with a short beep and Leonard pockets the phone into his trousers. 

With haste, he makes it make back to the station. Wet footprints are already leading inside, telling him other officers and detectives have gotten back before him. He wonders how many like him hadn’t made it home before the message came through. He wonders how many of them are thinking about just how fucked up this situation is. 

Leonard practically throws off his parka onto a chair lying by the door as he enters. A pile of discarded jackets is already there, and Leonard’s parka finds itself at the top of the pile. 

Walking further into the precinct, Leonard finds the dozens of officers congregated in a large semi-circle facing the wall of the crime lab. A few of them turn their heads to see Leonard strolling up into the group, others keep their focus on the report on their phones and computers. 

Captain Hill is standing at the front of the group, facing everyone. Leonard receives a small nod as he slides into place beside Alexa towards the back. Never before has Hill looked so serious. That relaxed and often humoured look she has when she’s walking around the precinct, joining in on conversations about whatever shit’s going down, is gone and in its place is a stoic glare. If her face wasn’t enough, the fact her collar button is done up is enough to indicate that she’s in a serious mood, because everyone knows she hates having her collar button done up. 

When she speaks, her voice is far from the relaxed tone she usual communicates with. Her current tone reminds him of a surgeon in the middle of a procedure, professional and orderly, straight to the point and void of all humour. 

“Has anyone not seen the document?” she asks.

A few hands raise, some people call out that they only read a bit. 

“Okay. As of 90 minutes ago, a List was revealed to the public. Sources indicate that it was a document uncovered by the metas and vigilantes who think themselves to be heroes.”

One of the guys on the other side of the congregation yell out something about how those heroes are nothing more than insane criminals. Leonard is partial to agree with him. Maybe it’s his cynicism which prevents him from believing that these heroes and vigilantes are as good as they make themselves out to be. 

Hill’s deadly gaze fixates on the interrupting officer, silencing him with a single look before she returns to giving her message, “According to the document, the US government and Department of Defence have created a list of locations. Some of you may have noticed that the Glades is on that List.”

Leonard certainly had when he did his quick skim. Places like Gotham and South Chicago were on that list too. 

“What does the List mean?” one of the officers who hadn’t read the message entirely asks.  
“According to the document, this is part of the Clean Slate Initiative. As ridiculous as that name sounds, it’s exactly what you what you think.”

“What are they going to do?” another officer asks. 

Hill takes a moment to breathe, “Whatever it takes to eliminate all criminal activity.”

Wonderful. Leonard sighs and rolls his eyes. Sounds like classic government slang for ‘execute the people.’

The List is short. Just a total of five locations across the States. Five locations where crime is at its worst and all hope for recovery is lost. It’s no surprise that Gotham is on that list, considering the Mayor of Gotham is a mob boss! But the Glades? Not Star City. Just the Glades. A district of Star City which has already been ravaged by an earthquake generator. Leonard knew the Glades was a fucked-up place, but he didn’t think it was on equal levels with Gotham. 

Somehow, the Glades being singled out makes it feel just that much worse. As if certifies that invisible divide between the Glades and the rest of the city. Same thing goes with South Chicago. He doesn’t watch the news often, but he’s hearing tales about how South Chicago has followed a similar path to the Glades. Baltimore and Blüdhaven, the latter being considered the twin city of Gotham, are the final two locations on the List. 

A sinking feel in Leonard’s stomach makes him uneasy, propping his hip against the lip of a desk beside Alexa and using it to support him. 

“Everyone needs to be high alert. The storm tonight should be a deterrent to many, but when that storm passes and people wake up, we’re going to have panic and riots in the streets.”

The captain isn’t wrong. Those protestors that Leonard encounters most days have been demanding change. Demanding that someone fix the Glades. Well, now they fucking have it. But by no means is it how anyone wanted it to happen.

That List may as well have said that none of their lives fucking matter because that’s how everyone affected by the List is going to look at this situation. There was this unspoken belief that people in the Glades were considered lesser humans than those in the wealthier parts of the city, and this practically confirms it. 

He reads it again, listening idly as people ask questions. 

The ‘occupants’ as the document describes people like Leonard and Alexa, are to be detained and scrutinised for criminal actions. They want to take people out of their homes and lock them up for god knows how long, and one-by-one, go through each person and determine guilt or innocence. 

“Hopefully,” captain Hill’s voice captures Leonard’s attention again, “Citizens who do not live in the Glades will keep out, but we have to be prepared that some may still enter.”

It goes without saying that anybody who isn’t from the Glades, or more accurately, people who don’t look like they belong in the Glades, are going to have a target on their back now. This reason is why Leonard wants Raymond to stay at home, behind locked doors until it’s safe to come out. 

Raymond is different from everyone in the Glades. His appearance, fitter than most, always clean and smelling nice, sticks out amongst the filth in these streets. His clothes too have a subtle message of wealth to them. They are plain and simple, but still made of high-quality material that you wouldn’t find in these streets. And if that wasn’t enough to make the average Glades ‘occupant’ want to hate the guy, that pristine-white tooth smile and bubbly personality sure as hell gives him away. 

With the news about the List, the more violent and radical people in the Glades are going to be out for blood, wanting revenge against the people they have felt oppressed by so long. Whilst Leonard knows Raymond is a good guy at heart, and knows for a fact that the boy scout would absolutely be disgusted by the idea of this List, the people who pose a threat to Raymond don’t give a rat’s arse. Everything that makes Raymond different, is like a beacon to those wanting payback and blood spilt. 

Leonard silently hopes people don’t find out that Raymond Palmer is the twin brother of Sydney Palmer, and the family of wealth that he comes from. Money alone is enough of a reason to kill someone in the Glades. 

“I’m going to start assigning you into teams, which I should have ready for you all by the morning,” Hills informs, “You will each have a quadrant, and will regularly patrol and keep a watchful eye out for anybody causing trouble.”

“What about The Resistance?” a cop speaks up. 

The Resistance is a countrywide coalition of people, ranging from people in the Glades on the West coast, to people in Gotham on the East. They consider themselves freedom fighters, fighting for the survival of places like those on the List, standing up for the oppressed and all that shit. Leonard can’t be sure how many members there are. The spectrum of members is too large and hazy to really grasp. There are the hardcore members, the people governments consider political terrorists, but there are members who are simply street thugs with the delusion that they’re fighting for a greater cause, and then there’s everything in between. Gotham and Blüdhaven are occupied by a large quantity of the hardcore members, so Leonard counts himself grateful that he doesn’t have as much to deal with. 

But part of him also knows that the unpredictability and volatility these delusional street thugs possess, especially after hearing about the List, make them a serious threat to the safety of a lot of people.

“There is to be no pre-emptive arrests and rounding up of Resistance members. We are not trying to start a war, we are simply trying to keep the peace. But if they do commit a crime, or there is the potential for peace to be broken, you have permission to detain them. But I do not approve of senseless killing. We are still cops. Try and stick to the rules,” Leonard doesn’t miss the way that he’s the one she’s looking towards by the time she gets that last sentence out, “Please.”

A resounding confirmation and understanding of their orders are given from the congregation of officers. With one last message, the captain urges everyone to make themselves familiar with the leaked government document, and to get some rest while they still can. Everyone is going to have to sleep in the precinct, which is not how Leonard imagined spending his night. 

Actually, Leonard doesn’t know how he imagined he would be spending his night. Maybe in bed with Alexa, with a high probability of sex. But that wouldn’t have stopped the message about the document arriving. He doesn’t want to imagine getting cockblocked by a leaked government document. A situation which would certainly have killed all kind of arousal and sexual high faster than Frank Drebin can think about baseball.

Sex never got an opportunity to occur tonight, because Leonard found himself at a shady bar with Raymond. He hasn’t really had time to process that entirely. It still feels weird to him that he felt such a sudden urge to protect Palmer as soon as he knew what bar he was in. An urge which he has for so very few people in his life, namely Lisa and Alexa. Whatever kind of empathy he had started developing for his partner grew when he learned of the loss Raymond suffered. Girlfriend? Fiancée? Whatever she was to him, her murder hit him hard, and the tiny part of Leonard that’s started to care about the wellbeing of his partner, wants to be assured that Raymond will get through it.

For now, he must be content with ensuring Raymond’s safety from angry mobs, by keeping the guy in his apartment until this whole thing blows over. And if it doesn’t blow over, well, then they’re all probably too fucked that it wouldn’t matter anyway. 

“Captain,” Leonard pushes his way through the dispersing crowd, trying to reach the captain before she walks off.  
“Mr Snart,” Hill sighs as she notices him approaching, “If this about being selected as a team leader, you’re with Halsey’s.”

“No this is about-” a look of genuine offence forms on Leonard’s face as the captain’s statement processes in his head, “Seriously?”

There’s something about the notion of Leonard being thrown under Halsey’s command that doesn’t sit well with him. Maybe it’s because the captain had just said she was beginning to organise teams, and he’s already cast off as if there was no way there was going to be an alternative. 

Hill shrugs as if she doesn’t see the implication that her words have, “She’s the only one you listen to.”

Okay, sure. It’s a fair point. Leonard knows how to follow orders, but they’re usually lame and his ideas are better, so he doesn’t. But her words once again have this unspoken implication behind them. The captain doesn’t trust Leonard to obey her orders, when it matters. And that last part is what makes him feel like he’s just been slapped in the face. Leonard may quite often be half-cocked, but he knows when to reign in his cockiness and don a more serious and collected persona that is fit for following orders. He at least thought the captain’s opinion of him included that. Guess he was wrong.

Leonard takes a moment to recompose himself from the psychological whiplash, shaking his head in an attempt to disregard the thoughts. 

“This about Palmer. I’ve sent him home and told him to stay there, but when he wakes up and reads what’s happening, he’s going to want to help,” Leonard shifts uncomfortably, realising how concerned his tone sounds, which surprises more than he thought, “Can you just order him or something to stay home? Send over cases for him to go over so he doesn’t need to be on the streets?”

It takes a few moments to see the rationale behind Leonard’s request. When she does, she’s quick to accept his request and promises to find something to keep Palmer occupied and off the streets. She doesn’t like Palmer much, not a lot of the other cops do, in part for the same reason why the mob tomorrow will probably want to rip him apart, but he’s an officer, and that is enough to form a bond of loyalty to uphold.

Leonard is dismissed, the captain walking off and discussing with some other officers before climbing the stairs and walking across the second-floor offices towards her own office, where she will assign the rest of the teams and whatever else needs to be organised for this upcoming struggle. 

Leonard lets out a sigh of relief, closing his eyes briefly as he leans himself against one of the pillars supporting the building and catches his brief. Okay, he’s definitely tired. An entire day’s worth of work piled up with this chaos has left him exhausted, not to mention running in the rain back to the precinct. He needs to sleep.

Alexa is waiting for him where she was standing during the briefing, having not moved and just watched Leonard talk to the captain. 

She eyes him with one of those inquisitive looks, “You sort everything out?”  
He takes a moment to register her words, failing at hiding how out of focus he was, “Uh yeah. Raymond should be safe. Can’t say the same about the rest of us though.”

Her hand reaches out to him, her gentle skin gliding across the hairs on his arm as she tries to give him some kind of silent assurance. 

“Come on. I want to get the comfy chairs before someone steals them all,” she tugs on his sleeve, and he mindlessly follows on. 

Whether she recognises the distant look on his face or not, she makes no comment or indication of it. 

He helps her set up some sort of makeshift bed out of the chairs they find around the precinct, climbing up to the second floor along with a few of the other officers who have desks up there. It’s a crude design, but it works. Pushing the desks close enough together, then getting two lots of three chairs, fitting them in between the two desks to hold them in place, creates a makeshift bed big enough for both Leonard and Alexa to sleep on. 

Fortunately, the precinct has dozens of foldable chairs in addition to each officer’s desk chair, so other officers find themselves mimicking a similar sleeping design to Leonard and Alexa. 

Leonard had gathered their jackets from downstairs, suggesting they use them as blankets, knowing how the cold always seems to penetrate through the walls. The storm continues to rage on, lightning and thunder occurring at irregular intervals, sometimes minutes apart, and sometimes just thirty seconds. Rain and the gale winds pound against the exterior of the building, generating this muffled noise that is quite ironically relaxing and soothing in contrast to everything else. 

“Jeremy got back to me about your query,” Alexa says, sliding herself over the desk and onto the chairs in the middle.

Leonard takes a few moments to remember what exactly he had asked her to do. 

“The Count is gone.”

Oh. Leonard looks at Halsey with disbelief, because those words just don’t make sense. The Count, at least his father, had been running things in the Glades long before Leonard even arrived. He’d witnessed the transition of power from the father to the son, the royal bloodline passing on. Now he hears that the Count of all people had just up-and-left the Glades, and he honestly can’t believe it.

“How long?” Leonard grunts as he scrambles over the desk barrier and into the makeshift bed. 

Alexa shrugs, stretching her legs out to reach the end of the chair-bed and, “Maybe a week or two.”  
“But the drugs are still being distributed?”  
“Yes,” she answers, “But the Count’s thugs have all disappeared along with the Count himself. Nobody is left to protect the drug distribution other than the dealers themselves.”

Leonard nods silently as he tries to make himself comfortable, shaking the water from his parka onto the floor before placing it between them. 

If the Count is gone, then it explains the unusual silence regarding the dealer. That reminds him. He still has to have a little ‘chat’ with the guy at 8 pm tomorrow night. Leonard likes to think he keeps his word, but with all this chaos and what’s expected of him from tomorrow onwards, he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to spare the time. Maybe he can sneak off during a patrol, say something about needing to head home and do something. 

“What’s your take on this shitstorm?” Leonard drawls, lying supine on the bed of chairs and checking to ensure he won’t somehow push the desk and create a gap between the chairs he can fall through. 

“Figured something like this was going to happen sooner or later,” she whispers, lowering her voice as people around them start getting comfortable for sleep.

He figures it shouldn’t be surprising that she finds the revelation of this list unsurprising. While she likes to make jabs at his pessimism quite often, she’s without a doubt far more pessimistic than he is. Comes as a result of working in the rape squad for as many years as she has been, handling cases which show some of the vilest and cruel acts that humanity can inflict upon each other. Killing is one thing. It can be accidental, often reactive in the heat of the moment or pursued out of revenge. Rape is another thing entirely. Leonard doesn’t know how she still has a soul after all these years, but he can see it wearing thin. He likes to think that his relationship with her is helping.

The difference between him and her in terms of their pessimism, is that while he knew a hard reset was necessary to fix everything, he didn’t didn’t think anyone would actually be willing to go through with it. She, on the other hand, was just waiting for it to happen. 

They settle down to begin sleeping, Alexa wrapping her torso up in her jacket, while Leonard’s much large parka is spread out over the top of them. 

Leonard’s mind is rattling with thought, fluttering around a million miles a second. How was the document leaked? How long had it been in the works? Will the government still attempt to go through with their plan? Did this somehow connect with the timely disappearance of the Count and his men? What about the other mobsters? Had they started vanishing too? 

Too many questions, and no way for Leonard to get any answers. Not when he has to look after the Glades. He doesn’t how long he stares the dark ceiling for before he finally drifts off, but when the nightmares start coming, he wishes he never fell asleep. 

XXX

He remembers the way his heart would pound as he sprinted down the street, his little legs and feet aching with each further step as he continued trying to put distance between himself and his home. Sometimes he would be able to get away for a few hours, hiding in the back of a store until the owner eventually comes around and kicks him out. Other times, he could find somewhere to hide out for a few days. But someone would always find him. Whether it was his father or one of his father’s many co-workers, they would always find him, and he would be dragged back home or thrown into the back of a car. It didn’t matter if he was bruised or cut by the time he was returned to his father, because a beating was always waiting for him. 

He couldn’t escape from his father. It was like a cord was tied around his leg, invisible and unbreakable, giving him the illusion that can run. But then he would run out of rope, and it tugged him back home. 

For years, Leonard would try to run. Try to get away. Then he stopped. That was the year Lisa was born. He couldn’t run away again, not when another life was on the line. Not when it was his own sister’s. 

It’s like the invisible cord had been replaced by this anchor of guilt that confined him to the house, where he wouldn’t dare to go off-shore for the risk that Lisa might pay the price for his grievance against their father. 

He wakes up in the middle of the night, the storm still going on outside the building, but the rain has softened ever so slightly, and the winds have definitely died down. He tries to focus on them while allowing his body to recover from the nightmare, letting the phantom pain fade away as the inflamed muscles along his body try to accept that it was just remnants of his mind and not current inflictions. 

Alexa doesn’t wake up, fortunately. He chances a glance around him, checking to make sure nobody else is awake. A futile attempt in the darkness of the office, relying only on sound alone to determine an answer. 

He sits up, holding his head in hands once again and trying to think. Why had these damn nightmares come back? He feels like he should know the answer, as if it’s on the tip of his tongue, but nothing comes to him and he’s left just praying that they’ll be gone again once he’s dealt with his ‘chat’ at 8 pm. 

Leonard sighs, checking the time on his phone. 01:13 am. Today is going to be a long day. 

XXX

The morning starts quite chaotically in the precinct. Leonard did fall back asleep, quite reluctantly, but fortunately without another round of nightmares. But he is tired when he’s woken by Alexa and the sound of other officers around them scrambling around the precinct. 

He’s barely sat up when Hill marches out of her office, her voice bellowing out over the noise of the precinct and demanding everyone to gather on the ground floor in five minutes. Leonard, having momentarily forgotten about the makeshift bed, stares in confusion when he finds himself trapped between two desks and the backrests of six chairs. Alexa kicks the chairs that supported their feet, pushing them back and giving her room to slide out. Leonard repeats her action and joins her. 

Memories start rushing back into to the forefront of his mind, reminding him why he’s here. The List, revealed by those god damn heroes and vigilantes. How the fuck did they find that kind of thing anyway? They think they’re saving the world by doing this kind of thing, exposing the corruption within the governments, but they’re just fucking things up any kind of stability and turning everything into this uncontrollable mass of chaos. 

Thankfully, the precinct coffee machine works today, and Leonard is able to grab two cups before returning to Alexa and passing one off to her. It’s just a minute later when Hill speaks up and starts assigning teams and informing what quadrants each team will be looking after. 

True to her word from yesterday, Halsey is captain of team two, and Leonard is in her team. Alexa seems almost surprised to find herself as the leader of a team, and gives Leonard a warm smile. She doesn’t seem particularly pleased about being given the responsibility of an entire team, but she is proud of the fact that the captain chose her to be a leader. 

Leonard tries not to think too much about it, giving Alexa a faux smile when she turns to him briefly. Maybe she was going to be a leader anyway, regardless of whether the captain trusted him or not. He’s unsure. It doesn’t matter. Alexa is the team leader, and he’s not to ruin it by mentioning what the captain said to him. 

Riot gear is located in the locker rooms, a solid wall between that and the holding cells. The team leaders are given the keys to the lockers and are ordered to equip their officers with the riot gear. Each team has a mixture of combat experience. At least two members from the SWAT crew are in a team, and everyone else has at least gone through academy basics. Leonard likes to think he’s pretty good, but with everything going on, doubt lingers in the back of his mind.

Leonard watches the way Alexa’s eyes dart around the heads of the people in her team as she starts organising how she wants this operation to go. Yeah, Leonard nods, she was probably going to be a leader regardless. Leonard would admit to feeling comfortable only under her commands, but that would be proven the captain right in her assessment of him, and that conflicts with his stubbornness and pride. 

Multiple large, grey lockers hold their riot gear. Opaque doors hide the contents inside from those eager to suit up. When Alexa inserts her key into one of the locker doors, just a few seconds after one of the other teams starts with theirs, Leonard hears the exclaim across the room. 

Alexa opens the door and where there are racks and hangers for riot gear, there is just dust and discarded shirts. 

Voices start rising as the remaining lockers are opened and each contains the same empty results. 

“Well, fuck me,” Leonard drawls, looking at the puzzled expression of Alexa’s face. 

“Captain?” one of the other leaders calls out, “We have a problem.”

Hill enters the locker room, lets out a string of curses far too informal and vulgar for a police captain, and sighs defeated. 

“You SWAT boys still have your gear?” Hill asks. 

12 voices confirm in unison. 

“Good. Suit up.”

“SWAT, ma’am?” Alexa asks just as the captain turns to leave.  
Hill looks back and shrugs, then exit the locker room. 

Leonard gulps. To the uninformed mind, riot and SWAT gear might seem similar. But there’s a difference. Riot gear is used when there are riots, to protect officers and keep crowds under control. SWAT gear is used when you want to kill a bunch of people really quickly. 

Are they still trying to keep the peace now? Or has their mandate changed?

XXX

Maybe it is the aftermath of the rain and the humidity that left such an off smell in the air. Maybe it is the mass of officers around him, the combinations of different body odours that was surrounding him. Admittedly, not many had showered last night, only those fortunate to get home early enough had been able to. 

Or maybe, it is the grim mood that was making his brain just imagine a smell that was akin to the feeling of dread. Whatever the causation of the smell so happens to be, Leonard can’t determine. He puts up with it as they continue marching on down the streets. 

As expected, people have begun hearing about the news, and as the hours pass in the early morning, getting close to noon, more and more people start emerging from their homes with dreary and frightened looks. 

Leonard feels uncertain as to how to treat the crowd, whether to try and give assuring smiles and let them know they are here to keep the peace, or give intimidating glares and frighten people into submission. On any other day, Leonard would certainly pick the latter, it’s just who he is, but this isn’t any other day. 

He settles on the smile after the second loop of the quadrant. He remembers how Raymond’s smile always seemed to radiate some kind of positive energy onto Leonard. It softened him up a bit, so he hopes that it may work on everyone else. The emotional dissonance is apparent as they carry on with their patrols. 

By the halfway point of their third loop of the quadrant, having just turned down a street from the residential slums and back towards one of the market blocks, they hear a muffled scream coming from one of the alleys. 

A group of men have surrounded this woman just behind one of the markets. Most likely she works there and was just doing the usual trash disposable when these men saw an opportunity. By the time Alexa and the team get around the corner, two of them already have pants down by their ankles. 

Within a minute, all four of them are arrested for attempted rape, and Leonard hopes that this is as bad as it gets. By the end of their next loop, they stop some teenagers from trying to loot a store. They try to defend their actions by saying they need to steal the money to get out of the Glades. They’re arrested too. 

The next few loops of their patrol, it now coming in the early afternoon, are fairly similar. Looters, assaults and angry people who are shouting from their apartments. One of the public buses had to be requisitioned as a mobile transport vehicle for the arrested folks. 

Leonard lost track of their loop number at some point, but just as three in the afternoon approaches, they hear loud cheering and roaring coming from down the road in the residential area. Alexa and Leonard, followed by the other officers, approach the scene with caution, listening to the mob get louder until they can see what’s happening. 

A mob of 50 or 60 rioters. There were crude weapons in many members of the mob’s hands. Daggers, baseball bats with barbed wire wrapped around the end. Worryingly, there was the sign of pistols amongst a handful of the mob. 

This roaring mob surrounded the prone body on the floor. Leonard can smell the death from the back of the mob, and he mutters a curse. This is the first corpse as far as he’s aware. Some of the other teams had reported some mobs forming, but nobody had reported a corpse, yet. 

“We got a body,” Alexa informs on the radio, additionally directing it to the rest of her team at the same time, “Get into position,” she orders to the two SWAT officers. 

The officers begin spreading out and moving to the sides of the street, taking cover near fences and trees. 

Leonard can’t see the body, too many legs and feet in the way. But he can see the occasional knife or bat with blood stains lifted into the air above the crowd before swing back down. 

Unless Leonard and the team can handle this situation carefully, things will only get worse from here on out. With one body already down, which Leonard is certain must belong to someone who belongs in the same category as Raymond, the crowd have experienced the taste of blood and they’re going to be thirsty for more. Leonard did a quick check in his mind of nearby places where this mob might continue onto. The markets weren’t far away, and if their first woman was anything to go by, people are still going to be out. One of the relief centres is just two blocks away, and that’s run by a group of five people from outside the Glades. 

Looking closer at the crowd, Leonard can see the armbands and tattoos of the Resistance symbol. A fist punching through the link of a handcuff, breaking it apart. Not very creative in Leonard’s opinion, but it gets the message across; fighting against those who oppress. 

The mob seemed to finally take notice of the police behind them, and the weapons began lowering from the air, but still held in ready-to-strike positions. The face they all expected pushed his way through the mob and stood in front of the line of officers. 

His hands were bloody, fingers dripping with blood and locks of golden hair caught up in the sticky, red substance. Shirtless, muscular abs and pecks. He was a large man, dark skin and had the outlined tattoo of the Resistance symbol in the centre of his chest. Behind him, emerging from the mob, are two other members. The ones with the bloody knife and baseball bat. 

“This one ma’am?” Leonard heard one of the SWAT officers over the radio on Halsey’s shoulder. 

“No,” hushed the red-head, “That’ll just set them off.”

Leonard feels a nudge against his shoulder and he turns his head to find it comes from Halsey. He looks at her expectantly, waiting to see what she wants. 

“You have the louder voice. Tell them to disperse,” she instructs, pushing her hair back which had been blown forward by the wind.

Leonards and steps forward to the crowd, a few meters separating him the big guy and his posse. 

“Alright! Unless all of you want to be charged with accessories to murder,” Leonard orders, his deep and loud voice emphasising that last word, “Disperse now and it will be over.”

“Not you three,” Alexa points a finger in a sweeping gesture over the three leading thugs, “Move and I’ll have you shot.”

Leonard doesn’t see the chunk of metal coming for his head until it’s too late. It skims across the side of his head, still hitting him with enough force to stagger him into one of the other officers. His ears ring as his skull tries to recalibrate after the disorientation. 

Halsey is shouting for cease-fire, which causes the mob to laugh. The idiots think she’s talking to them, when in reality, her order is the only reason the SWAT boys haven’t started pumping lead into the heads of each thug. She spares a concerned look at Leonard, willing him to be okay. 

“How much of a hard-on do you get when you beat up an innocent person?” Alexa asks as if in normal conversation, returning her attention back to the three thugs with Resistance tats on their bodies.  
The brawny, white guy behind the head of the mob snarls, “Come here and I’ll show you.”

Leonard is thankful his ears are still ringing, and his head is throbbing, because a comment like that would have probably provoked him more than it would the intended target. 

The big guy at the front sticks a hand out to stop his advancing friend, and sneers at Halsey, “Traitorous bitch doesn’t deserve men like us. She would be lucky if show her a good time.”

Halsey growls, “Traitorous? Where’d you get that fucking idea from?”  
“You a coppa, bitch” the third guy jumps in, “That make you traitor.”

Leonard almost wants to laugh at how moronic this guy sounds. Someone clearly didn’t pass their first-grade English class. 

“Traitor?” Alexa barks with disgust, “I was born here. Grew up on these streets just like you.”

“You’re a government pig,” the head man cuts in, “Working for those who want us dead. That makes you one of them, bitch.”  
“Is that what you think, huh?” Alexa takes an intimidating step forward, anger flaring on her face.

“Yeah,” the second guy huffs, puffing out his significantly less impressive chest in an attempt to show defiance and bravery, the knife still in his hand.

“So what?” Alexa turns to him, “Killing that innocent person was for the good of the Glades? Just you lot doing your civil duties by purging out traitors? Is that what you think you’re doing?” there are a few head nods from those at the front of the mob, “You’re the damn reason our home is on that fucking List in the first place. Killing people like this is exactly why they want to round up and murder all our arses.”

Leonard agrees, but he’s also aware that there’s no coming back now. With their home on that List, it may as well be set in stone. The Glades is fucked. Best they can do is mitigate the losses when whatever clean-up crew comes for them. 

“At least I’ll show your arse a good time before I murder it,” the second guy comments, earning a laugh from the crowd and from his two friends, the three of whom start advancing towards Alexa. 

“Kneecaps,” red curls falling in front of her shoulder as she turns her head to speak calmly into the radio.

Suddenly four shots ring out in quick succession. The black guy at the front finds his right knee blown right through, and the uneducated thug has a bullet through his left shin. As for the guy with the knife who made the comment, well both his kneecaps are missing. 

Pools of red blood drain from their wounds as their cries echo in relation to the quiet street. The smell of gunpowder reaches their noses, and he can see the crowd looking in panic as to where the bullets are coming from. 

Alexa steps up the big guy at the front, kicking his other knee and causing another agonising groan. 

“You lot are taking orders from these sleazebags?” Alexa’s voice rises up and reaches out across the crowd, “We all know what’s coming! This,” Alexa makes a sweeping gesture that includes the mob and the corpse in the centre, “is exactly what the government wants us to do! They want the public to see us as fucking psychopaths, as people who destroy our own homes and community from the inside! If we keep doing this,” she repeats the same gesture, “we’re just proving them right, and they’ll be more than happy for us all to bite the bullet!”

Alexa’s eyes scan the crowd, finding someone with an armband of the Resistance logo. She steps up to him, forcibly grabs him by the collar of his shirt and pulls him from the front of the mob. 

“You want to fight for the future of the Glades?” Alexa asks, her face inches from his.  
Fear is plastered on this guy’s face, knowing that guns are most certainly trained on him, but the way he responds shows he’s trying to stay strong, “Fuck yeah.”

Alexa points to the three Resistance thugs on the ground, “So did they. But they’re going down for murder and will most likely be crippled for the rest of their pathetic lives, so we’re now three members short in this upcoming war,” she pushes him back, uncaring at how he stumbles and almost trips over, “They are turning us against each other! Every time I have arrest one of you lot, that’s one less person fighting in this war! I don’t want to do that! I don’t want to put valuable soldiers in the ground! But this is what the governments want us to do! Are you willing to lose?”

The mob shifts, and Leonard can feel the change in tension. All the built-up energy and fire that the mob had gathered was waning. Everyone took a step back from each other, the distance between the cops and the mob growing, bar the three crippled thugs on the floor. 

“You may think we’re traitors, but we’re in this fight just as much as you are,” Alexa’s voice is still loud, but she’s refrained from shouting over the crowd now, “Don’t make us your enemies. Please.”

When the stragglers at the back of the mob start turning around and dispersing, Leonard lets out the breath he didn’t realise he was holding. The mob starts splitting apart, people heading off in different directions, weapons being stowed into the waistbands of shorts or hanging by their sides. 

The body in the centre of the crowd becomes visible, a woman. Golden hair and white skin. A dark grey shirt, which is now covered in her own blood. Her face is cut open and displaying the blank expression of death. 

Alexa signals for officers to come up beside her. 

“You three are under arrest for the murder of whoever that woman was. You have the right to remain silent. You do not have to participate in questioning without an attorney present, and if you so much as stare at my boobs one more time, I personally shoot your balls off.”

Leonard takes a step back from the group of officers, watching with what can only be considered as awe at the sight in front of him. 

A minute later, three officers have the three thugs in handcuffs and dragging along behind them, off to requisition a public bus which can be used to shuttle the detained criminals back to the station. 

Alexa walks over to Leonard, her posture tall and strong, still living off the high of whatever was fuelling her during that speech. The wind has picked up again, and her red curls flail around behind her head, and Leonard finds it incredibly hot. 

“Fuck me,” she says as she approaches him.  
Leonard huffs, eyes turning to watch some of the stragglers of the mob, “Yeah. That could have done very differently. Who would have thought it was possible to reach the hearts of an angry mob?”  
“No. I mean, fuck me,” when Leonard looks to Alexa, he sees the sexual hunger in her eyes. 

“Oh,” Leonard mumbles and his brows furrow, “Right now?”

She nods and grabs him by the arm. There’s a small little cottage home just up the street which Leonard knows is unoccupied, since last week he investigated the death of the owner. He wastes no time getting the door open for the pair of them, and while he’s closing the door behind him after letting her in first, she’s already stripping before he even gets the chance to turn around. 

“Clothes off, handsome,” her husky voice demands. 

Leonard stands frozen for a few seconds, watching as her bra slips off her body, exposing her naked breasts. He touches the side of his head gently, skimming his hand over the wound. Is this some hallucination? Is he having a concussion and just imagining this is happening? He forces his eyes shut and presses a finger over his eyelids. 

“Your head okay?”  
“Is this real?” Leonard asks, opening his eyes and trying to focus through the blurriness. 

He sees her outline approach him, and a moment later, he feels his hand forcibly guided to one of her breasts, while her mouth captures his. 

Okay. Yep. This is real.

Leonard needs no further proof and begins sinking into the moment, returning firm kisses as well as kneading one of her breasts with his hand. They break apart for a few moments, giving Leonard time to dispatch of his clothing, shirts pooling on the ground by their feet. 

She jumps him, legs wrapping behind his waist, her core in line with his erection and grinding against it, eliciting a sound of pleasure from her. Her breasts are pressed firmly into his own chest, and he snakes one hand underneath her butt and one behind her back, pressing her even tighter against his body. Her long hair is soft on the back of his hand. With careful haste, he moves them towards the bedroom down the corridor, forcing the door open with his shoulder and throwing themselves onto the bed. 

In just seconds, their pants are gone and discarded by the door. 

She holds him firmly in her grip, guiding herself down onto him, her wetness making it exceptionally easy, as well as the hours of practice they’ve had at doing this. 

The adrenaline coursing through the two of them from the situation with mob makes this experience feel different from the others. There’s something about the idea of knowing that they’re worlds are tearing apart and they’re scrambling to hold it together, which has sex feeling that much more invigorating. 

Her hips rock up and down, the occasional swirling motion sending waves of pleasure through the both of them. 

They make it quick, both aware that technically they’re still on duty, and she’s meant to be leading a team and ensuring that peace and order are maintained. Alexa is still coming off her high, her chest rising and falling with each heavy breath while Leonard’s busy fiddling with the zipper on his pants. 

“Think we’ll be alive by the end of this?” she asks with panting breath.  
“Pillow talk is always interesting with you,” he drawls, doing up his zipper. 

Her head turns to the side, looking in his direction and he can see the seriousness in her gaze.

“I don’t know,” Leonard answers, “Maybe it’ll get to the point where it’s better we don’t make it to the other end.”

Alexa remains stoic in her expression, looking at him as her chest continues to rise and fall while she lies back on the bed. 

XXX

After 7 pm, Leonard comes up with some excuse as to why he needs to go home. He says that it’s to get something for his head, but when he’s gone a few blocks from the station, he changes direction and heads towards his desired destination. 

A shady apartment building. 

Leonard enters through the front door with ease and begins climbing up the stairs. He checks the floor and room number on his phone, pocketing it once he is standing out the front door of the man he’s here to meet. 

Leonard knocks on the door, and a few seconds later, the sound of feet scuffling across the floor inside approach and the door swings upon. 

“You’re not Hannah.”

He’s a slim guy, shirtless and with long unkempt hair going past his shoulders. That lustful look he had in his eyes as the door open, fades and is replaced with a look of confusion and surprise. 

Leonard presses his lips together and shakes his head, “No. I am not Hannah. But I am here to talk about her.”

Leonard’s fist strikes out at lightning speeds, the sound of nose cartilage cracking under the force of his punch sounds like music to his ears, especially after such a long and exhausting day. 

The guy stumbles back into the apartment, leaving the doorway wide open for Leonard to invite himself in. The cop locks the door behind him, rolling up his sleeves as the man tries to regain his balance. 

“Hello Tony. Let’s have a chat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I hope you're enjoying this adaptation of Leviathan Wakes/The Expanse. 
> 
> Just a little reveal now, Leonard will finally begin work on the Sara Lance case next chapter. Next chapter should be a bit shorter, but then again, this chapter was meant to be about 5000 words, and instead, it turned out to be over 8000, soooo...
> 
> Until next time.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello. 
> 
> A quick note which I feel hasn't been explicitly stated yet. Sara didn't go through the whole 'death and resurrection (bloodlust)" thing. She just came back to Star City and been living there for years.  
> Anyway, welcome to a chapter all about Sara, without her really being there.
> 
> Enjoy.

Okay, now he’s really pissed off. 

Things have not been going well for him. 

For starters, the nightmares didn’t stop after he ‘dealt’ with Tony. He fell asleep with a smug grin, confident that he did what was needed to ensure him a good night’s sleep. 

Apparently not. It was the same as the previous night. 

Then he walked into the precinct looking tired and frustrated, threatening to arrest some punks who were spraying up some walls with Resistance logos while he was heading over.

Leonard had been too busy to watch the news, so he heard it when he came into the precinct in the morning. The government had finally given a formal statement after what they say was an extensive investigation within their political bodies. 

To sum up the 20-page response and half-dozen press releases they gave out, the government was denying it. 

It’s a false document, they say. We’d never consider such inhumane actions, they say. That last one is a blatant lie, Leonard thinks. Official statements from different heads of branches of the US government all said the same thing. It was fake. 

And maybe it was fake. Maybe this shitstorm was happening all over some fake piece of paper. But did it really matter if it was fake now that the fear had set in? Were people going to get over the whole situation that easy? Forgive and forget? 

Any chance of things returning back to normal ended when reports about an unknown group of soldiers that had wiped out an entire mob family in Baltimore, released just a few hours after the statement was made. Everything the government had said, now looked like a lie in the public’s opinion, even though the government denied any ties to those unknown soldiers. 

Leonard should be grateful it took a while for the news to reach the Glades, because Baltimore was pissed. Five dead in just the one night. Dozen more assaults and God knows what else happened. 

The entire day was a chaotic mess. With their riot gear still missing, the squads once again rolled out with SWAT officers fully kitted out in their gear. And driving around in requisitioned public buses all day was not fun. Mobs were out and about. None as bad as yesterday. None that had resulted in another senseless beating of an ‘oppressor’ or ‘outsider’ or whatever names they were coming up for people who weren’t them. 

But the scent that they were all on the brink of major conflict was hanging in the air, and both sides could smell it. 

To make the political landscape even worse for the American government, other countries had started making their own comments about the situation. There were threats to withdraw alliances, trade agreements hanging on by threads, tensions so high that a sneeze could be mistaken for a gunshot and that alone could start a war. 

The world was falling apart. Over a fucking document. 

After that long day, Leonard was once again haunted by another night of nightmares. 

It was now five days since those fucking superheroes exposed what might possibly become the deadliest piece of paper in human history. Stories about that Baltimore mob family execution had been exaggerated to no ends. Leonard’s surprised that the execution of the bloody mob itself had elicited such an emotional and powerful response from people.

This high tension – high volatility state that the Glades had become was starting to become the norm, and it didn’t look like it was easing up anytime soon. 

Meanwhile, since Leonard couldn’t get rid of those damn nightmares, he resorted to drinking them away. He hoped that by getting blackout drunk, he’d be unable to remember any dreams or nightmares if they did occur. It was working so far, but he felt like shit each morning. A fair price to pay in his books. 

His desk may as well belong to Raymond Palmer now. Leonard had escorted him back to the precinct one afternoon while their patrols were in his area. Mobs were starting to close in on houses, barging in through front doors, and it was risky to have Raymond on his own. While Leonard had initially wanted to spare Raymond the feeling of being trapped in the precinct, it was no longer safe to be locked in his apartment. Instead, Raymond was stuck with desk duty, helping the captain organise cases and patrols.

Leonard drops into the other chair, sculling back the rest of his coffee before chucking it in the small metal bin beside his desk. 

“Another bad night?” Raymond asks, hardly looking away from the monitor and the files on his desk.  
Leonard makes some grunt of agreeance and leans back in his chair, “How many cases today?”

Raymond spins around and looks to the wall where a notice board has been set up. He has been using it to create a chart of the open cases for everyone to see. 

“Six murders, eight rapes, 12 extortion complaints, 30 serious assaults, 43 minor assaults or muggings and 57 break-ins and rising,” Raymond lists off. 

It’s their entire open case list, which includes cases still waiting to be solved or ‘handled’ from before the List had been released. The goal was to try and keep these numbers as low as possible, but criminals were just outpacing the cops, and the gap was increasing each day. 

“You seen the livestreams from Gotham?” Raymond asks with what sounds like a humoured tone.  
Leonard shakes his head groggily, “Didn’t know Gotham had the broadband to handle a livestream.”

Raymond chuckles, “Take a look at this.”

He spins the monitor around to show Leonard, unplugging his headphones and letting the audio play out from the speakers. 

“Oppression against us is what the government feeds on! They can’t go a day without stepping on our throats with their iron boots!” the man on the feed wears a ski-mask to hide his face, but his Resistance tattoo is visible on his right shoulder, “They try to scare us into submission, but we cannot allow ourselves to be scared! Their strength comes from our fear! We must be brave, for it will make them weak and powerless! Stand strong together brothers and sisters!”

Raymond taps the keyboard and starts lowering the volume.

Leonard lets out a humoured sigh, “Sure. I hear bravery makes you bulletproof now.”  
Raymond smirks, “You have to give them props for their courage though.”

Leonard nods and leans back in his chair, “What case do we want to do today?”

He regrets the word as soon as they come out of his mouth. Raymond may enjoy doing the paperwork, but it was clear that he was upset about being sidelined and prohibited from exiting the precinct. 

There were looks from other officers, small sympathetic glances to Leonard, as if apologising for giving him the ‘outsider rookie.’ Raymond had seen those looks too. It was impossible not to notice. 

That sense of protectiveness that Leonard had been feeling for Raymond grew immeasurably when those looks started coming in. Part of him wanted to help Raymond feel better, take him outside and get him back in the field, but he couldn’t do that. And then Leonard wanted to try and assure him that the guy wasn’t hated just because he was born from a rich family, but not even Leonard could lie that well. 

Leonard had been thinking about his own situation. He technically didn’t come from the Glades, but he was never really treated as an outsider. He came from Central City, but that rough neighbourhood in the North where all the gangs and street thugs lived. Only corrupt cops handled that area, which is why his father lived there. 

He was an outsider to the Glades in the sense of geographical locations, but he wasn’t an outsider the kind of oppression and treatment that people in these rough neighbours receive, so it was relatively easy to make the Glades his home. Same lifestyle, different location.

Then he joined the cops, because he wanted to prove to himself that he could be a better cop than his father. Sure, it didn’t long before he would be considered a corrupt cop, but he came to learn that it was a necessity for survival. Sometimes it was better for everyone in the Glades if he looked away and turned a blind eye, but he made sure he was never as bad as his father. 

Sitting here at his desk, hungover, well he’d be lying if he couldn’t see a bit of his father in himself right now. It was a horrid feeling in his gut. 

“The captain wants me to help her organise some of the older cases,” Raymond mumbles, his voice low and quiet, trying to mask the pain behind it. 

That humoured grin from a few moments ago was gone and the fact it was Leonard’s fault made him feel guilty. What had happened to him?

“What about your bounty hunter contract?” Raymond asks, searching through the pile of files on his desk.  
“Huh?” Leonard looks with confusion towards the rookie.  
“The missing daughter,” Raymond slides a file out from under the pile and holds it in his hand. 

Sara Lance. The kidnap job. 

“Printed it out for you this morning,” Raymond said, “Figured you may as well do it now before she becomes one of those names up there,” he gestures with his head to noticeboard on the wall.

Leonard stares at the file held out to him, sighs, then accepts it. He flicks it open. The paper clip holding about a half dozen pieces of paper. The first thing he sees is a small photo of the freckled-face blonde. She’s smiling, staring off in the distance, head turned slightly askew from the direction of the camera. There’s greenery behind her, and Leonard figures it must be some kind of park. 

It’s a bit old, three years to be precise, and his brain already begins trying to simulate some kind of aging process to her face, but he concludes that she probably hasn’t changed all that much in just three years. 

Leonard closes the file, taps it against the desk and pushes himself to his feet, "Cover for me will you? I don't know when I'll be back."

“You got it,” Raymond nods, “Stay safe.”

Leonard nods, turns, and heads out of the precinct. 

XXX

Her apartment isn’t too far away from his, just a 10-minute walk really, so he stops by and grabs a few items, throwing her casefile onto his bed before leaving. He skimmed over it during the walk, just looking at the basic background information. 

Standing outside her apartment room, Leonard listens to the sounds of other residents milling about in their own apartments. He hears the sound of pipes running water through the walls, the creaking and groaning of a bed in rapid succession from the door behind him, the sound of tv in the next room over from someone who’s probably trying to block out the previous noise. 

Her room is silent as far as he can tell. Stepping up to the door, he hears nothing coming from inside. Checking the area around him, he crouches to the door lock and twists it. As expected, it’s locked, so he pulls out those items he retrieved from his apartment. Lock-picks come in handy, especially as a cop dealing with handcuffs. Plus, it has the added bonus of providing a very fun sex game involving handcuffs with Alexa. 

Inserting the two metal rods, he feels around for the vibrations as he carefully manipulates the lock. A few seconds later and the lock clicks. Leonard stuffs his picks in his pocket and twists the door open. His hand reaches for his holster, that underlying paranoia present as he enters through the doorway. Ears listening out for any noise, his eyes try to adjust to the darkness in the room. 

Curtains are closed, with tiny gaps of sunlight streaking in through the thin divide between the left and right curtain, a clean line of light cutting through the apartment. Leonard’s other hand fumbles around the doorway in search of a switch. 

Finding it, he flicks it on and whips out his gun, holding it out in front of him as he steps further into the apartment. No sound other than his footsteps can be heard from within, and once he does a quick sweep of his gaze over the open apartment, he tucks his gun back into his holster and closes the door behind him. 

Already, his mind is cataloguing and profiling this Sara Lance, judging her based on the apparel of her living quarters. The design is mostly similar to others in the Glades. Leonard appreciates the lack of the meter long killbox hallway into the apartment, easing his conscious as he stands in the open apartment. From the entrance of the apartment, a wall runs along the left side, and the floor opens up to the right. 

Up against the left-hand wall is a two-seater couch facing a small tv sitting on a small horizontal cabinet. None of these furniture items are particularly expensive. Leonard has a similar tv himself, and he knows Alexa has a couch about the same size. Easy enough to pick one up for cheap if someone was moving out. 

He’s a bit, what’s the word he’s looking for? Disappointment comes to mind, but that’s not really it. He was expecting a bit more of an expensive taste at first sight, considering this girl comes from a family of Assistant District Attorneys and Chiefs of Staff. But that’s not what he sees, and he doesn’t know how he feels that she doesn’t match his initial expectation. 

He looks to his right. Behind the wall where the cabinet and tv are positioned against, is the thin wall separating the bedroom, keeping it confined to the back corner of the apartment. Beside him is the kitchen, which is a bit more open than his. There’s enough room for someone to move around without feeling claustrophobic, which is the important matter that Leonard considers when he examines it. 

The bathroom and shower are beside the kitchen, sitting between it and the bedroom, against the far-right wall. 

“Decent,” he mutters quietly to himself, spinning around slowly and taking in the walls. 

They’re dirty, but not from filth and grime, just dust which has built up over time and likely hasn’t been cleaned. He walks up to the couch and takes a closer look, running his finger along the fabric and picking up dust. 

With a frown, he rubs the dust off his parka and drops into the couch and leans back. 

“Alright, Sara Lance,” Leonard says, “Who are you?”

He tries to imagine what it would be like to sit here in on this couch as Sara Lance watching tv. Does she think about the father and sister she chose to leave? Does she have hobbies? How many times has she had sex on this couch?

As a detective, it’s his job to know these answers, although the last one may be a bit irrelevant, one could argue extenuating circumstances make it relevant. 

He rises out with a groan and takes the long step to the cabinet and tv. The remote is sitting beside the monitor at an odd angle, facing more to the corner of the room. Leonard picks it up and notes the clean spot underneath where dust hasn’t reached, which tells him it hasn’t been used in some time. As for how long and specifics, well he’s fucked at trying to make a guess. He’s no dust expert. 

He places it back down in its spot, smudging some of the dirt in his attempt. With his knuckle, he pushes the left cabinet door open, revealing an assortment of DVDs and a cheap media player. Nothing particularly fancy in here. A bunch of action and horror movies though, but behind them is some romance movies, so it tells him that she’s got a bit of a romantic side to her. 

He presses the eject button on the media player, waiting as the machine whirs to life before ejecting the disc. Out comes the small silver-back disc of a movie called About Time. Leonard digs around for the case, finding it behind one of the many zombie-horror movies. He does a quick skim of the blurb on the back, humming and shrugging as he puts the case back in its spot and the disc back in the player. 

A minute later, and Leonard has the movie beginning to play as he checks the right cabinet. Nothing really of value in here. Some cables, that’s about it. 

Standing up, he increases the volume before walking over to the kitchen, enough so he can hear it from across the room. 

The first thing Leonard does is checking the sink for any cutlery or other bowls and rubbish. A washed bowl sits in the bottom of the basin, and Leonard picks it up and examines. It’s mostly clean, but a faint layer of dust has coated it and once again indicates that it has been some time since someone was last here. 

He pops open the fridge after putting the bowl back in the sink and looks inside. Four shelves in the main compartment, and two on the door. There’s an empty carton of milk, which Leonard reads as being best before a date over two and a half weeks ago. 

“Looks like you dodged the storm,” Leonard mutters, figuring that she’s gotten out before the document was released. 

His mind does take note that her departure is sort of in-line with the disappearance of the Count. He also notes that he needs to find out if some of the other mobs have left the Glades too. He figures it must be the case because nobody other than the Resistance has made any noise in the Glades, but he’d like to be sure that they’re not just staying quiet and waiting. 

In the back of the fridge, behind some spreads and half a carton on eggs, sit six unopened bottles of beer. He considers it for a moment, still feeling the remnants of his hangover. Succumbing to the desire, he grabs one and pops the lid open and takes a swig. 

He closes the fridge behind him and starts going one by one through the draws and cabinets in the kitchen. Plates, bowls, clean rags, some clips and bags for storing leftovers. The standard stuff. There are a few cooking mixers and an electronic scale for measuring ingredients, so he figures that she does cook her own meals occasionally. 

The sound of a countdown for what appears to be a New Year’s Eve party catches his attention, and Leonard steps out of the kitchen, with the beer in his hand and watches the scene play out. 

He chuckles, watching the awkward exchange as the two people chicken out of a midnight kiss and try to play it off coolly. 

Leonard takes another swig of the beer and returns to his check of the kitchen. He finds her garbage bin tucked underneath the cabinet. Placing the beer on the countertop, he pulls out the rubbish and takes a look inside. 

The smell causes him to scrunch up his nose, a singular Chinese takeout box sitting at the top, with remnants of the meal in the small plastic container. 

Trying to keep his hands clean as he can, he grabs the handle of the container with just the tips of his finger and lifts it up. He looks underneath for another, but it’s just more rubbish. Nothing to indicate she shared this meal.

“No one to have dinner with, huh?” Leonard observes, placing the container back in the bin and kicking it under the sink.

He exits the kitchen, grabbing the beer as he walks back over to the TV. In his mind, he’s imaging seeing Sara Lance sitting at either the counter or the couch, eating the takeout or whatever she had in the bowl, all on her own. She is alone, but does that necessarily mean lonely? Is she happy the way she is?

The image of the blonde in his head fades and he looks around the room again. Bathroom or Bedroom first?

Eventually, he’ll have to have examined both of them. 

“Ah, what the hell?” Leonard mutters, striding over to the bathroom door and pushing it open. 

It’s small and clean. A shower beside the toilet. A sink against the wall. Pretty standard. Above the sink is a mirror door cabinet. He pulls at the handle and opens it up. 

One toothbrush and a half-used tube of toothpaste, a hairbrush. Spare bottles of soap, shampoo. A few different types of women’s deodorant, both roll-on and spray. A shaver with spare blades still wrapped in the plastic. Medication is on the middle shelf. Some headache tablets, birth control pills, and something with a stupidly long name on it, which just happens to be a different brand of muscle pain medication. 

Placing the beer precariously on the lip of the sink, using his thigh to keep the bottle from tipping over the edge, Leonard reaches in and picks up the birth control pills. 

It’s not that he’s actually curious, he just knows these things are meant to be taken on a daily schedule, and he’s hoping that something in this will provide a more accurate revelation about when she was last here. 

Problem is, when he opens the packet, which had previously been opened, he finds that none of the pills had been taken. There goes that idea. 

But he does note that if she’s cautious enough to at least buy the pill, and it hasn’t been used, then there’s a fair chance she isn’t seeing anyone. Except she might have a girlfriend, which makes these pills redundant. So he focuses on the other tells. The lack of another toothbrush, an extra shaver, and other toiletries indicates that nobody else has been residing with her. Combined with the previous findings in the kitchen, he believes Sara Lance lives alone. 

Satisfied with his examination of the bathroom, he grabs his beer, which is technically Sara’s, and steps back into the open area. He returns to the couch for a bit, watching the same New Year’s Eve scene plays out as he’s watching the same part again, but this time, when the countdown reaches zero, instead of the awkward and embarrassing mess, they kiss. 

“Fair play to him,” Leonard mutters, toying with the idea of having the ability to go back in time and make right all those awkward moments he’s had. 

From his spot on the couch, Leonard eyes the closed door of the bedroom. 

Nothing in the bathroom, the kitchen, or where he’s sitting now reveals much about who she is as a character, other than indicating her solitary lifestyle. Which means that if she has anything to reveal what kind of person she is, he will find it in there. 

The father in the movie is currently trying to encourage his son to find something he is truly passionate about for using his powers on. Leonard’s only half paying attention to the movie as he stands up and walks over to the bedroom door. 

This kind of thing is always in some morally grey area. Examining the apartment of a woman he’d never met before has a sense of wrongness to it, as if he’s crossing a line of respect to this woman. But it’s his job to be doing this. To be going through her kitchen and finding that she eats alone. To learn that she probably isn’t sleeping with any guys. To know that the only toothbrush belongs to her. 

Yet out of all that, Leonard hesitates only when he is standing outside the closed door of her bedroom. 

Leonard doesn’t rummage around Alexa’s bedroom, going through her private belongings, and yet he’s sleeping with that woman. But now, he’s going to step inside and examine every detail and object in the bedroom of some woman he’s only seen in a photograph. 

Because that’s his job. He’s allowed to do that. Really, his only unethical actions so far have been drinking her beer and watching her movies. Everything else since he entered her apartment has been within the parameters of his powers and responsibilities. 

Tentatively, as if in slow motion, Leonard reaches forward and places his hand on the handle. With a gentle twist and push, the door creaks open. Light begins to pour in, illuminating the end of her bed and the small desk in the corner. Reaching his hand in, he finds the switch and floods the room with light.

The white walls extend out to the left from the doorway. A wooden desk and drawer cabinet are right in front of him, pressed against the wall facing the bathroom. A single size bed, not even a meter in width, with light grey and white bedsheets is up against the window. A blue duvet hangs off the far side of the bed, with similarly matching pillow covers. Immediately, he notices there’s more life in this room than the rest of her apartment. 

Stepping into the room and looking back on the wall that divides the TV from the bedroom, are some bronze-like plaques. Awards by the looks of it. Upon closer inspection, he’s able to read the engravings and discover that they are commendations from a martial art’s school in the Glades. Each one represents the award for achieving the next rank in the school. Some a few years old. One of them is relatively recent. Six months ago. 

With his free hand, he does a quick search on the Internet for the martial arts school. Leonard recognises the street address, his memory coming back to him as he recognises exactly where it sits in between that illegitimate antique dealer and the clinic. As he scrolls through, he finds the ranks of the school, linking their names with the plaques on her wall. 

“Damn,” Leonard hums, eyebrows raised, “You’re good.”

The rank titles themselves are foreign, but he can see they are going up with each plaque. According to the list on their website, these aren’t the early ranks. These are later year ranks. Ones that should take at about a decade to reach if starting from the very beginning. 

“Where’d you learn to fight?” he asks to the empty apartment. 

There’s a humbleness about the way she presents these awards. They could easily be on the other side of this wall, beside the TV and showing off her accomplishments. But she chooses not to. 

Leonard nods to the plaque. He considers congratulating her, but then he realises that she wouldn’t be interested in an appraisal, so he turns away and looks elsewhere. 

The desk is small and wooden, has a single drawer tucked underneath. Only a small lamp sits on the top, so Leonard places the almost empty bottle of beer on the desk to keep the lamp company. The bottle leaves an imprint in the dust, but Leonard doesn’t care. 

Tugging on the small knob-shaped handle, he pulls the compact drawer out and examines the contents inside. He first notices the armband with the Resistance logo on it, sitting on top of a pile of paper, nodding as the idea of her being part of the Resistance makes sense. 

A rebellious girl who doesn’t want to be part of the rich life her father and sister lead. Where else better for her to try and go than the Resistance? He wonders how long she’s been a member, and whether her origins caused trouble for her. 

As for the pieces of paper, Leonard pulls them out and starts flicking through them. Nothing of significance at first glance. Some receipts and junk mail that weren’t thrown away. Towards the end of the pile are some papers regarding the Resistance. Pamphlets from the Resistance themselves about whatever actions have been going on in other cities. Some newspaper articles about things that the Resistance takes interest in. 

Nothing indicates to Leonard that she reads this stuff religiously. There’s very few in here relating to the Resistance. Sara will do her part for the cause, but she’s not the kind of devotee that buys into the propaganda of these sorts of things. 

Leonard flicks to the last of the papers, the papers he’s already read being forgotten as he stares at this final piece. This one is different to the others. It’s a drawing of a bird. Lightly sketched on the paper, smudged and wrinkled with time and age. A plump little bird, with a short beak and feet. The word ‘Chirper’ is written up the top, the tail of the p circling around the name. 

It’s a pleasant drawing, Leonard thinks, has the level of detail that tells him she put time and effort into creating this. He looks for more in the compact drawer, but this is the only one he finds. 

“Be nice if there was more,” Leonard actually sounds disappointed as he puts the papers back into the drawer and shuts it. 

Taking the final swig of the beer, Leonard moves onto the large box of drawers. Two half-size drawers on the top level. Then four more full-size drawers underneath until it reaches the ground. 

Leonard guesses what’s in the first two drawers but opens them anyway. Underwear in the left, socks in the right. He counts the pairs of socks in the right. Four pairs remain, which he guesses must have started out as five and she’s wearing the fifth pair wherever she is. 

The underwear drawer is, insightful. A combination of different bras and panties. Nothing in this collection screams out to him as sexually provocative, except for maybe the black push-up bras. The rest just seem like comfortable articles of clothing to wear, ones that wouldn’t dig into her body or require her to constantly readjust throughout the day. 

Leonard stares at the black one for a bit, trying to make sense of its purpose. There’s no closet in this room, bit too small for one of those, so he flings open the other drawers one-by-one. He’s just looking for the rest of the outfit that goes with the bra, and he finds it in the middle drawer. 

A black dress folded up nice and neat, sitting tucked beside a few pairs of different shirts. There’s plenty of clubs and bars in the Glades. Dozens if not close to a hundred in the total area. What’s not to say that she doesn’t like to occasionally don the fancy look and have a night out. Maybe she just wants a night of drinks. Maybe she’s looking to get laid. But if the outfit is neatly packed in the drawer, then it means she finds some use in it.

Leonard closes the top two drawers and begins taking closer looks at the second and middle drawer. Second drawer is pants. Middle is tops and the black dress. Pretty simple. Leonard looks at a few of the shirts. Some are sizes too big compared to the rest, and he imagines they’d fit very loosely over her body. There’s a similar story with the pants. Some look like casual outside, day-to-day shorts or jeans, but there’s a pair which are more briefs than shorts. 

All-in-all, her clothing collection is quite modest. And something inside Leonard finds it more attractive than any alternative. 

The last drawer holds her fighting school outfit. The numerous belts folded side by side in the drawer, with her garment folded neatly. 

With his assessment so far, his image of Sara Lance is starting to take a more solid shape. He’s imaging the kind of woman she is. The woman who has the athleticism and prowess to earn such high distinctions in the fighting school. The humbleness to keep her accomplishments to herself, not feeling the need to show it off. 

‘I did that,’ he imagines she would say as she hangs up the plaque on the wall, smiling to herself.

“Yes, you did,” Leonard agrees, a faint smile on his lips. 

But also, the woman who has moved away from her past life, away from the politics her family dabbles in, for a life of freeness in the Glades. Leonard finds it quite ironic, that thought in particular. He finds himself under the impression that the Glades has him trapped in a sort, where this life is the way it’s going to be for him. But Sara Lance has come to the Glades seeking liberation and escapement from her family, takings arms with the Resistance, going to nightclubs and bars where she likely sways her body to the music. Things she couldn’t do outside the Glades. 

 

And the last thing he imagines, is the image of Sara sitting at that desk and drawing that little bird on the piece of paper. Blonde hair falling over the front of her shoulder as the pencil scratches against the paper, leaving the gentle lead mark. It’s all so serene, imagining it before his eyes. 

Hold on. 

Where’s the chair?

Leonard looks at the desk, which he is now finally realising is missing a chair to sit at. Maybe he’s had a bit too much to drink. Must be here somewhere. Leonard looks around the small room, stepping around the bed, noting the small bedside table with another lamp and a book resting on top. 

But he does not find a chair. 

Looking down at the ground, are the ends of two metal legs sticking out from underneath the bed. 

Leonard huffs, realising that in such a small room, it wouldn’t be wise to leave the chair out all the time which would block her path. Leonard gives it a soft nudge with his foot, and where he expects the chair to move accordingly, he hears it hit something that sounds like a hard-plastic underneath the bed. 

“What monsters have you got underneath your bed?” Leonard groans as he brings himself to knees, which make him feel dizzy as his head is still feeling the effects of his hangover and the recent beer consumption. 

Planting himself on the floor, belly down, Leonard turns his head to look underneath the bed and uses the flashlight on his phone for illumination. 

Just behind the chair, is a weird looking black box. But it doesn’t even look like a traditional cuboid box. It’s like a rifle case, but different. Leonard pushes it out the other side of the bed with less resistance and weight than he expected. 

Rising to his feet, walking around to the other side, he looks down at the case. Trapezoidal in shape, bit over a metre in length and maybe two thirds in width. It’s matte black, unreflective in the light. Leonard bends down and picks it up, dropping it on the bed and flipping open the two locks. With a click, Leonard opens the case and looks inside. 

Well, this just gives him an entirely different view of Sara Lance. This is a weapons case. In the base compartment, are two cut out spaces, one of them occupied by a closed laptop, and the other empty, but shaped as if it would hold some kind of outfit if packed correctly. 

The top part of the compartment actually surprises him. Along the longer length is a space for a staff. Above that, on the left, is the holster for a pistol with straps to hold spare magazines. On the right side are cut out grooves in the shape of knives and blades. 

Leonard flicks his eyes to the plaques. That school doesn’t look like it teaches how to use these kinds of weapons, and it definitely doesn’t warrant a case of weapons and an outfit. There is suddenly so much more to Sara Lance than he imagined. 

With the outfit missing, as well as the weapons, Leonard really only has one to think. She’s gone off to fight something. But what? 

The laptop catches his gaze once more and Leonard digs his fingers around it and pulls it out, moving it to the top of the drawers and opening the lid. 

“Damnit,” Leonard grumbles, hitting the power button and finding that it’s not coming to life, “The chargers.”

Leonard moves the laptop back out to the TV area. Digging through the cabinet of cables, Leonard retrieves one for the laptop and finds a power outlet to begin charging. Knowing that the charging is going to take some time, Leonard returns to her fridge and grabs another bottle, popping the cap off and taking a swig. 

While the laptop charges, Leonard walks back into her room. The bedside table has a single book on top, _The Locksmith’s Daughter._ He places the beer beside it and lifts the book in his hands. Thick book, about 740 pages of the story he finds by skipping to the end. The white bookmark sticks out the top of page 244, the beginning of chapter 21.

How often did she read? Did she enjoy this book? Did she stop reading voluntarily, or was this where she was up to before she disappeared on what is starting to seem like a mission?

Placing the book on the bed, Leonard bends down, taking another peek under the bed. There’s another box, but when Leonard pulls it out, he finds that it contains a few extra personal belongings, namely books and photographs. 

There’s an Avian Guide Book sitting on the top, with a few sticky notes out the top. Leonard flicks through to each labelled page, learning that they are all related to different kinds of canaries. 

He feels like this should mean something more than the simple observation that she likes canaries. But whatever this nagging thought in his brain is trying to tell him, fails to convey its message and gets lost in the haze of alcohol. 

Leonard takes another swig of the beer before looking through the photographs. Some of Sara by herself at varying ages. One is a 13th Birthday Party, another when she was just a kid showing off her pet canary. Then come the family photos. One of them includes a mother, which Leonard remembers reading about in the file. Supposedly after Sara’s disappearance with Oliver Queen, the parents split. 

There are many of Laurel and Sara together, hugging, sitting, smiling together. Then there’s a jump in the photos, which must be the years Sara disappeared. Only three photos of herself and Laurel are taken after her return. He compares those photos to the older ones, taking in the changes in her face, the maturity of the years passed, the scar just by her ear. 

Leonard grins. He’s heard the tales of Oliver Queen’s five years in hell. But Sara Lance went missing with him, and her experience must have been something similar too. She’s a survivor. Whatever those years did her, it left its mark, but she pushed through it. Taking in the lessons those years taught her, accepting them and moving forward. 

She impresses him. He looks at the empty weapons and outfit case. That doesn’t belong to the teenaged blonde that went missing. That belongs to the woman who survived and came back. As do those plaques on the wall. 

Leonard looks back in the box, and sitting just in the corner, facing him, is Sara’s smile. 

Reaching in slowly, Leonard picks up the small picture in his hand. It stops just past her shoulder level. He can see she’s wearing a white shirt, her hair is hanging behind her head, flowing loose and free. Her open smile exposes some of her teeth, clean and white. Her expression is somewhere between a smile, and the beginnings of a laugh. 

For a moment, Leonard thinks she’s looking at him, as if he just told her a funny joke and he’s seeing a still image of her response to it. Then reality sets in and his brain tells him it’s just an image of a woman he’s never met, let alone told a funny joke too. A wave of disappointment forms in his chest, and shakes the thoughts from his head.

He goes to put it back in the box, but he stops, hand hovering in place as he tries to find it within himself to let go of the photo. An internal battle begins in his head. Let it go. Keep it. The latter wins, and Leonard pulls his hand back and tucks it in his pocket. 

Time passes, and Leonard idles around in Sara’s apartment, waiting for the laptop to gain enough charge to at least start up. He picks up the thick book and the box, bringing them out with him to the couch while he sits and drinks as the movie continues to play on the screen. 

Leonard dozes off briefly, realising he’s been asleep for maybe 20 minutes. Leonard doesn’t pay much attention in trying to catch up with what he missed of the movie, because his eyes narrow in on the log-in screen of the laptop. 

Damnit. A password is needed. He prays that she has a useful password hint. 

‘Your first bird’s name.’

Leonard grunts as he returns to the box of books and photos. He picks up the Avian Guide Book and the photo of young Sara and a bird. His hazy and tired mind makes it hard to focus, but he pushes through and tries to find a name. 

It’s as he flicks through the list of different canaries in the book, when something clicks in his head. He’s already seen her bird’s name. The drawing of the bird.

Leonard types the word Chirper into the textbox, hitting enter and smirking with delight as it logs in. 

The desktop is clean and assorted into folders, with a picture of white canary in the background. He thinks that the image in the background should be reminding him of something. Leonard skims the titles of the folders: Photo Shit, Cool Shit, News Shit.

Leonard huffs, “Show me your ‘shit’ Ms Lance.”

Starting with the photo folder, Leonard finds collections and albums of photos of various things. A few are the physical photos he saw in the box, but this is just a wide catalogue of photos. He skims through them, peering at the thumbnails for anything interesting. A lot of it is of her when she was a child. Probably just family photos she’s collected over the years. 

Cool shit contains some cool things. A series of training and exercise regiments, as well as notes and videos regarding the martial arts school. A few of them are videos of her doing exercises, and Leonard sits with his jaw hanging slightly as he watches the blonde flip around on a training mattress, then spar with another woman and pin her to the ground with ease. The rest of the folder is full of book lists, documentaries, and other videos. 

Leonard looks towards the next folder, but his eyes catch the mail icon on the taskbar with one pending notification. Opening the mail application brings up her email history, displaying the four most recent messages. Quickly scrolling up and down the list, Leonard learns that most are between the mother. He only reads the subject lines, which seem pretty normal to him. Then he returns to the more recent ones. Three out of the four are from her sister. 

Multiple weeks apart, each email is just a short and brief message about what has been going on in the family, with a not so subtle request for Sara to come back. Leonard feels out of place, reading these intimate details about the family, reading the ADA practically beg for her sister’s return. But he has to keep reading. Learn as much as he can about Sara Lance. 

The most recent of the three is over two weeks ago. 

_Dear Sara,_

_Hope you’re still doing okay. Dad’s been getting a bit tense these past few weeks. He always turns off the news whenever there’s mention of the White Canary on it. I know you’ll always fight for freedom and the right thing, and I love that you have the passion and dedication to it, but I think it’s really affecting Dad. He just wants you to come home, Sara. I do too._

_Love,  
Laurel_

The response from Sara is a short reply saying she’s doing okay and that she hopes their father can understand that she’s trying to make the world a better place, and that she can’t abandon the people she’s trying to help. 

The unread email is from her father, just under two weeks old. 

_Sara_

_I am being entirely serious when I say that you need to return home now. The Glades is dangerous, and something doesn’t feel right. I know you don’t like the fact that I have a problem with you running across rooftops in that stupid outfit, but we sort can sort that out later._

_This is urgent Sara! You need to come home! Now!_

There isn’t even a signature at the bottom. 

Leonard frowns. He can’t help but think of her father and sister as some manipulative and controlling family. He already knew her father had the influence and resources to turn Leonard into a tool for finding his daughter, but her sister is trying to guilt trip Sara into returning home. 

Leonard’s heart skips a beat and he almost drops the empty bottle of beer on the floor, his hand clenching around the neck just as he feels it slipping. He turns around, putting the tv to his back and looking at the couch. 

Sara Lance, but not really, is sitting on the couch, staring at him. 

“It’s you,” Leonard whispers, “You’re the reason behind the nightmares.”

She leans back. 

Leonard is stunned, “Who are you? Why do you have a case of weapons?”

“Read it again,” the voice of Sara tells him. 

Leonard examines the emails again. White Canary. Outfit. Running across rooftops. He checks the folder of news articles, and there’s an entire collection of articles regarding the different vigilantes and heroes across the country. The White Canary. The Glades own vigilante. 

Sara Lance, is the White Canary, Resistance fighter. Gone missing since before the List came out, with an email from her father saying that bad things were going to happen. 

And she’s the reason behind his nightmares. He thought he was going crazy, and maybe he still is. But really, this was just his brain trying to tell him that he and Sara Lance aren’t so different. To give him the chance to help her when no one could help him. 

Well, Leonard has just changed the objective of his case. Oh sure, he’s still going to track down Sara Lance, but he’s not taking her back to her parents. His gut is telling him she’s in trouble, and that her disappearance has something to do with the List. 

This kidnap job just became a whole lot more interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Not a lot happened considering it was mostly in Sara's apartment, but this sets the ball rolling for things to come. 
> 
> This was a long chapter, and I don't know if people prefer the longer or shorter chapters, but I just got really invested in having Leonard poke around her apartment and try and learn everything he possibly could from every detail. 
> 
> I'm not going to say that the next chapter will be shorter, because unlike my other works, I'm writing this as I go. I really don't know how it turns out until the words on the document. 
> 
> Until next time, thank you.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I've said before, book readers will notice the similarities in the progression of the story. As for tv viewers, I'm still going to throw in some familiar scenes to be adapted for you too. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy.

Leonard was feeling uncomfortable. 

He doesn’t like feeling uncomfortable, and yet, unfortunately, here he is. 

A sheepish look of guilt plastered on his face, eyes looking to his feet stretched out on the bed. His back pressed against his pillow as he sits. 

Golden eyes are scrutinising him, boring holes into his body, causing his hair to stick up on ends. Arms crossed and an expression that reads somewhere between anger and disappointment. Maybe a bit of both. 

Alexa is in her uniform, Leonard is still wrapped in his blankets. 

“You skipped patrols,” Alexa’s voice is stern and matter-of-factly, “again.”

Leonard rubs his eyes, really wishing he had a glass of water to do something about the hangover he’s nursing. What’s the time? He dares a quick peek at the clock. Not even seven in the morning. 

“I had a case. Lost track of time,” Leonard’s drawl falters with his coarse and dry throat.  
Alexa bends down and picks up a bottle of cheap beer from the floor, “Oh really? Did that case require you to investigate the contents of this bottle?”

That was a bit mean, he thinks. Although, maybe it wasn't so uncalled for. 

He didn’t know if the nightmares were over yet. Just because he realised that Sara Lance was the cause of them, didn’t mean he thought they were over. In fact, part of him thinks that knowing the truth might just make them worse, giving his mind something else to fear should he give it the chance. Leonard wasn’t going to give it the chance, so he continued drinking, regardless of how shit his body felt about it.

Leonard snorts, “You’re not my bloody mother. Why do you care?”  
“Because I’m your team leader and you skipped patrols twice,” Alexa takes a breath and sighs, “I’m just concerned about you Leonard. People say you’ve been coming in hungover every day this week. And then yesterday, you were only at the precinct for 10 minutes before disappearing, skipping another round of patrols. What’s going on Leonard?”

Leonard’s attempted smile is unconvincing as he scratches his head, remaining silent as he lifts his gaze to her face. 

She looks tired. There’re dark marks under her eyes where bags are forming. Her hair is unkempt, the curls getting tangled in each other. She probably doesn’t get much sleep at night. Early starts, late nights, dealing with the patrols and all the shit that’s going on in the Glades. How is she still standing, he wonders? 

And yet, as tired as she may be, here she is. Standing at the foot of Leonard’s bed, trying to get him out of it. 

If what she’s saying doesn’t make him already feel guilty, the fact that she’s using her time to check-in on him sure does. It’s manipulative in its own special way, even if Alexa isn’t intending it to be. 

This whole thing makes him uncomfortable. And Leonard hates being uncomfortable. 

“Get up,” she gestures with a single hand flicking up.

Leonard responds with an unintelligible grunt before throwing off the blankets and swinging his legs off the bed. He rises to his feet, swaying as his vision goes blurry for a few seconds and then proceeds to follow Alexa out of his bedroom. 

He looks back at his bed, as if trying to look through the mattress to where the file on Sara Lance is hidden underneath. He knows it’s there, and its significance resides in his mind. 

Where is she? And what has she gotten herself into?

Alexa whips them both up some breakfast and pours a cup of coffee each. Much to the dismay of many officers, the coffee machine in the precinct was damaged when one of the felons tried breaking loose. Leonard picks around the edges of his toasts, cutting off small pieces and nibbling down at it. An uncomfortable silence permeates around his kitchen, the pair sitting on opposite sides of the bench, slightly to the side of each other. She’s eating cereal, and the sound of the scraping of her metal spoon against the bowl is slightly jarring and annoying to his recovering senses. 

“Was it really a case?” Alexa’s voice is quiet, and he is unmistaken in thinking there’s a desperation in her voice.  
“Yeah. A girl’s gone missing,” Leonard answers, tearing off another corner and slowly putting it in his mouth.  
“The captain has you working a missing person’s case?” surprise and disbelief are apparent in her tone, “Now? While the Glades is falling apart?”

Leonard shakes his head, “Nah, it’s a case she gave me before the List came out.”  
“Then why are you doing it when there’s more important work to be done?”

A little voice in his head tells him that this is important, probably more important than the rest of the cases they have to get through. He needs to find Sara Lance. That’s what’s important. And as a side note, it may tell him how this whole shitstorm started in the first place. 

“Cause I figured I should find her before her name winds up under the homicide tab,” Leonard answers. 

While that is a very good reason for why he wants to find her, there’s still too much he doesn’t understand about her situation. Which is why he’s not telling Alexa that Sara’s the White Canary, and that she may be involved with everything that’s happening. 

“Did you find her?”  
Leonard shakes his head again, “She’s been gone a few weeks before the List came out.”  
“So, she probably got out?” Alexa guesses.  
His shrug is unconvincing, “Maybe.”

But his tone is final, indicating that their conversation is over, and communication ceases whilst they finish the remainder of their breakfast. Leonard does get through the slices of toast, barely, and his stomach thanks him for the sustenance. 

Alexa offers to clean up while he goes and gets changed. So, Leonard returns to his bedroom, stripping down and finding something warm to wear for work. Long-sleeved, grey shirt and black slacks are good enough for him today. He bends down beside his bed to pick up his parka, sliding himself into it, when he stares the book on his bedside table. 

The Locksmith’s Daughter stares up at him. 

Memories of yesterday afternoon start returning back to him. How after discovering she was the White Canary, he stuck around in her apartment and started seeing it from a slightly modified lens. He replayed the movie from the beginning, watching it actively this time, but also trying to imagine how Sara would view it. 

The bird books and drawings made sense, but then he went back into her bedroom and found the big book that had been left unfinished before she disappeared. It was difficult to try and imagine how someone who spent most of their nights running across rooftops, could sit still and read in her bed. Maybe it was Sara’s way of finding balance in her life, combining periods of rest and reading with nights of adrenaline and crime fighting. 

And then again, he also remembers the black party outfit. He imagined her dancing in the club, bodies pressed against each other due to lack of room on the floor. All those people, unaware they were in the presence of the White Canary. 

Leonard didn’t realise it until a voice called out to him, but he had picked up the book and been staring at the photo of the smiling blonde that was hidden underneath.

“I didn’t peg you for the historical romance type,” Alexa smirks from the doorway. 

Leonard casts a glance over his shoulder, flashing a grin as his other hand discretely picks up the photo of Sara and slides it into his parka pocket, “You’ve read it before?”

Alexa nods, “Which is why I can’t see it being your type of book.”

Leonard places the book back on the bedside table and bends down to reach the file underneath his bed. He decides he needs to see the captain about this, see if he can get permission to take a further look into this case. 

“That the lost lady case?” Alexa’s eyes fixate on the brown cardboard folder in his hands.  
“Yeah,” Leonard nods, tucking it inside his parka and wedging it under his elbow, “Shall we?”

The pair exit his apartment building and emerge onto the street below. Grey clouds blanket the sky, rain not quite falling, but looking on the verge of doing so. The wind has picked up, the chilling winter breeze flowing through the streets, each breath making their lungs feel like tiny pieces of ice are scraping away inside. After a particularly strong gust of wind, Alexa tucks her hair into the back of her jumper. 

The streets are busy as people are beginning their morning shifts. For as chaotic as things may seem, most people still behave and interact the same way. When your goal in life is to just get to the end of the day, normality and simplicity are often what people rely on. 

A group of elderly women are talking around a table outside a coffee shop. They’re making snide remarks as they usually do, probably discussing all the ‘riff-raff’ that’s going on. A group of young kids, mostly boys, but a few girls, are riding up and down the streets on their bikes and skateboards, laughing and having fun. A couple at a bus stop they pass are sitting close together. The boy leans in, and Leonard notices his hand snaking up the hem of her shirt. The girl flashes her boyfriend an encouraging grin and leans in for a kiss. 

Leonard and Alexa simply continue walking. 

It’s often easy for Leonard to forget how mundane life can be, and that there are so many people just trying to live normal lives. There’re many tens of thousands of people in the Glades at least, the criminals make a minority, while the clear majority are just normal people. Whatever their stories may be, whatever choices led them here, it’s Leonard’s job to keep them safe. They didn’t ask to have their homes run by mobsters. They didn’t ask to have half of the district destroyed in some deliberate earthquake. Many of their lives may be far from innocent, but there’s a difference between maintaining innocence, and honesty. 

Hannah and Simone come to mind. Two women with lives far from what would be deemed as innocent, having experienced their fair share of bad shit in the world, but it’s an honest life. They do what they can to survive, and nobody can ask them to do more than that. 

His hands are shoved into his pocket, his left-hand brushing against the photo of the blonde. Sara’s a vigilante, the protecting warrior of the night in the Glades. But who protects the vigilantes? Well, Leonard wants to believe that it’s his job. She’s just as much as a member of the Glades as he is, which means his duty to protect the people of the Glades extends to her. 

Alexa lets out a long sigh beside him as they approach the precinct. Whether it’s for him, or the day ahead of them, he doesn’t know. He tries to catch her expression out the corner of his eye, but she has no indicative tells. 

Leonard tries to use the cold winter chill to make himself wake up, taking a deep breath in and letting the cold seep through his body and jar his nerves. The hangover is still throbbing in the back of his head, but the cold sensation makes him alert and gives a coating pain to focus on. 

Alexa gives him a soft smile as she splits off at the top of the second floor, heading to her desk while he heads to the captain’s office. Leonard gives Raymond a courteous nod on his way. 

Kimberly Hill is sitting behind her desk, engrossed in whatever is currently on his computer’s screen right now. His knuckles rapping against the glass door snap her out of focus and she looks up at Leonard before gesturing him in. 

Leonard pulls open the door and holds the file on Sara Lance in his hand as he approaches her desk. 

“Mr Snart?” Hill sits up straight in her chair, “What can I do for you?”

Without a doubt, Leonard knows she’s surprised to see him. Now, there are few reasons why she might be surprised at his presence, but Leonard knows that her surprise is entirely about the fact that he’s shown up to work at all. 

Leonard hides his reaction behind a stoic expression and places the case file for Sara Lance on the desk. 

“I need to investigate this further,” Leonard taps his finger in the middle of the case. 

Hill peers forward and picks up the file, “Sara Lance? Your missing daughter case? Why are you doing this now?”  
“Figured I find her before she winds up dead,” Leonard drawls, “If you just give me some days off I-”  
Hill shakes her head and lifts a hand to stop him, “I’m sorry Mr Snart, have you forgotten what’s being going on out there?”

Leonard holds back a sigh, “No sir, but I think she might have something to do with it. Or she’s related to people who do.”

Hill’s eyes flick up to Leonard and she leans back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, a gesture which gives Leonard the permission to talk. However long he gets, well that’s unclear, so he needs to make the most of it. 

“I read her emails. Her father, Quentin Lance, sent her an email just less than two weeks ago demanding that she come home,” Leonard informs, “He said that something wasn’t right with the Glades, and that bad things were going to happen. And just one week later, the List comes out and things start going to shit.”

Hill shakes her head, “Bad things happen in the Glades all the time Mr Snart. And Mr Lance is the mayor’s Chief of Staff. City Hall is always on the news saying that the Glades is a terrible place.”  
“I think there’s more to that though sir-”  
Hill uncrosses her arms and lifts up a silencing hand, “Is she here in the Glades?”

Leonard takes a step back and casts his eyes on the Newton Cradle clinking back and forth, “No sir.”  
“Then forget about her,” Hill sighs, “This was a favour for city hall, which none of us gives a rat’s arse about anyway. Your job was to see if she’s in the Glades, and if so, send her back to her father. But she’s not, so I’ll run that up the line and her father can go hassle some other police department. We don’t care.”

He doesn’t want to forget about Sara Lance though. He wants to find her. Because for some reason, he does care.

“Doesn’t the timing of this email and the List just seem off to you?” Leonard retakes his previous position closer to the desk.  
Hill shrugs, “I don’t know. But I don’t want you chasing down conspiracies because her father sent a frightened email,” she points to the wall of cases, “Those aren’t conspiracies. Those are real issues that need solving, Mr Snart.”

Maybe Hill is right, Leonard thinks. But he just can’t accept that idea. Not when he knows Sara’s secret. If she’s the White Canary, then there might definitely be a conspiracy here in play. Leonard wants to get the captain’s permission, he wants the captain to see how important this is, but he can’t. Telling the captain that Sara is a Resistance will only make the captain harder to persuade, and if he tells her about being the White Canary, then he may as well kiss any possible chance of the captain’s assistance goodbye. 

“Anything else?” Hill doesn’t even look at him, her attention focused on the computer screen in front of her.  
Leonard picks up the case file for Sara Lance, “No sir,” and begins heading out of the captain’s office. 

“And Mr Snart,” Hill calls out, her attention still on the computers, “I expect to see you on patrols this afternoon.”

Leonard opens the door and looks back to the captain, giving a small nod before exiting. This case has been bullshit from the start, and Leonard knew he wouldn’t like it. Nothing about it was right, but then again, neither is many things that he’s experienced. But they’re usually wrong for different reasons. The only thing wrong about this case is the fact that he’s not being permitted to investigate it further, when everything in his gut is telling him that every other investigation should be put aside, and this is the one they should be focusing on. 

“Hey, what was that about?” Raymond asks when Leonard drops into the second seat beside his desk.  
“The Sara Lance case,” Leonard discards the case on his desk and sighs.  
Raymond looks at it and nods, “You didn’t find her?”

Leonard shakes his head.

“Did you lose the case?”  
Leonard rubs a hand over his tired face, “May as well. She wants me to file the report and close the damn thing. Says that this case isn’t worth doing at this time.”  
Raymond lets out a hum, his face remaining calm as he looks to Leonard, “You could always hold off on the filing. Wait until things calm down and then you can pick it back up again. I’m sure that wouldn’t be a problem.”

Leonard wants to reply that things probably never will calm down, but the logic in Raymond’s statement holds some value to Leonard. The case is technically his until he puts in the report and files it off. So if he doesn’t do that, he can still keep working at this on the side. He’d have to do it off-hours to try and avoid suspicion from the captain, but that shouldn’t be a problem. 

Leonard smirks, “Yeah. Wait until things calm down,” he looks to his partner, examining the boy scout’s face which seems, off, in some way, “Everything alright?”

Raymond shrugs, and Leonard realises it’s a gloomy expression which covers his face, “Just feels wrong being stuck here all this time, doing paperwork when I could be out there helping.”

Leonard stares at his disheartened partner. A man who had chosen to come here in pursuit of avenging the woman he cared for, only to find himself stuck to a desk just days after getting the job. 

An idea forms in Leonard’s head. It’s highly irresponsible. Dangerous even. Could probably get Raymond killed or seriously injured if they’re not careful. The voice in Leonard’s head tells him to look out for his partner and keep him in the precinct, safe and sound. Another voice, the same voice inside him that wants him to find Sara Lance, tells him another thing. 

“Come on,” Leonard rises to his feet with a groan.  
Ray snaps out of his dreary reverie and looks at Snart with a confused expression, “Excuse me?”  
Leonard gestures with his hand, “Come on. I think I saw a few assault cases marked in the China Town district.”

Raymond looks uncertain, almost as if expecting Leonard to turn around and say it’s a joke. But Leonard remains unchanged in his expression, simply waiting for Raymond to stand up out of his chair and join him. 

And just like that, that dreary and gloomy expression turns into a beaming white-toothed smile. And it doesn’t make Leonard immediately want to punch his teeth. That’s a positive thing, Leonard thinks. 

“Let me grab my coat,” Raymond says with enthusiasm, racing over to the coat hanger by the wall. 

Leonard smirks and heads towards the stairs. It’s the least he can do.

XXX

A vacant building catches Leonard’s attention as they’re walking through China Town.

“Stop,” he sticks a hand out to Raymond and halts the boy scout’s advancement, “That building shouldn’t be empty.”

“What building?” Raymond asks. 

Leonard gestures with a tilt of his head, “That one.”

Men and women walk past the Leonard and Raymond down the narrow streets, stalls lining the footpaths, owners doing everything they can to entice customers to come and try out their stock. The aroma of dozens of different restaurants and food joints fills Leonard’s senses, cooked meat, steaming noodles, a variety of spices that make Leonard hungrier than he already is. 

But he doesn’t focus on how the smell makes him hungry. No. His attention is fixated right on that vacant building, located between two takeout places. Officially, it’s a front disguised as one of the many takeout places, but everyone knew there were shadier dealings in the back-storage rooms. 

China Town is a fairly large subdistrict in the Glades. In reality, there’s a mixture of Chinese and other Asian businesses that have set up shop in this part, but the reason why it’s called China Town is that the Triads run this place. A gang of highly dangerous individuals, dealing in things from drugs to weapons, to the odd priceless artefacts, led by Chien Na Wei, or China White. 

Leonard never liked her. She was the one to put the emphasis on calling this part of the Glades, China Town, and the idea of naming a place after yourself seemed pretty pompous to Leonard. 

Thing is, like with all the other organised mobs, the Triads were very organised. Probably the most organised out of every family in the Glades. They kept this part of the district under a firm grip. Sure, extortion rackets were through the roof here, but that was the necessary price for organisation and simplicity, which Leonard couldn’t argue with. 

“Why shouldn’t it be empty?” Raymond asks, turning to Snart with a raised eyebrow.  
Snart continues to stare through the dark windows, “Because it means the Triads are no longer here.”

Raymond looks at Snart incredulously as the detective walks up to the boarded entrance and peers through the tinted windows. Leonard knows exactly what Raymond is thinking of him right now, and frankly, the only thing Leonard can blame is the boy scout’s lack of experience in the Glades. 

All these missing criminals make him wonder if they somehow got wind of the List beforehand. These criminals are leaving for a reason. Sara Lance left for a reason. Was she following them? Was she trying to uncover some secret plot? He doesn’t know. He wants to know to more, and the lack of knowledge he has about her situation is eating away at him. 

Leonard backs away from the front of the store and looks around the street which is still buzzing with sounds and smells. He doesn’t need to ask anyone when this building became vacant. It was still occupied a month ago when he had to swing by the China Town district to chase down a murder suspect. 

“Look,” Leonard strides up to Raymond who is still looking at him with that confused expression, “I know you don’t get it because you’re new here, so let me explain it to you. The criminal organisations here serve a purpose. It’s shitty, crime rates are through the roof, but it’s necessary. The good thing about it, is that we know these crime bosses. We know how they work, we know how they like to do things and we know what they’re interested in. Which is good for us cops, because it means there can be at least some fucking order and control in this godforsaken place.”

“I don’t see how-” Raymond crosses his arms and tries to say.  
But Leonard glares and puts a hand between them to silence him, “Do you know what the Glades produces these days?” Raymond shakes his head, “Fuck all. Our precinct is a run-down car factory because the Glades doesn’t make anything anymore. Anything legitimate that is. The criminals and their organisations are the only things that bring money into the Glades. 

“There is a beautiful life cycle of money in this economy,” Leonard drawls, staring off as if imagining the beauty of it himself, “It starts out as a drug deal for 10 thousand dollars. That money belongs to the criminals, but those criminals need to buy things like food, which goes into little stores like the ones around us,” he gestures to the pasta shop nearby, “and then the money slowly spreads out from there as wages are spent, eventually finding its way into the hands of the taxman, which ends up in the council’s pockets. Our paycheques come from the council’s budget, so that means the money us cops use to pay our rents, came from a drug deal months ago.”

Raymond is speechless, transfixed by the passion in Leonard’s tone. 

“Now those criminals,” Leonard continues, “The Triads, the Count and his men, they know that their place in the economic life cycle of the Glades is valuable, and they respect it. But they’re gone. So, if they’re packing up, who’s bringing in new money? Who’s going to be keeping other criminals in check from causing the black market economy from crashing? So when I say that it is not good that the criminals are leaving this city, I mean it. There is a big, fucking hole in our system, a power vacuum that someone needs to fill. And if the Resistance decides that they’re the ones to fill it, it would spark chaos and it’d be back fucking news for everyone.”

“I didn’t know,” Raymond mutters, looking away sheepishly from Leonard.  
“I know,” Leonard considers his partner’s face and sighs, placing a hand on by his shoulder, “You never should have come to the Glades, Raymond.”

Palmer looks up with a hurt expression, and that look makes Leonard’s chest tighten inside him. When did he get so soft? 

“You’re too good for such a shithole like this,” Leonard tries to consolidate, and it seems to soften the hurt on Raymond’s face.

The guy has a good heart, and Leonard doesn’t want to take that away from him. He just doesn’t want Raymond to be wasting his life away in the Glades, not when he should be doing something amazing with his knowledge and good intentions. 

“Put in a request for a transfer,” Leonard’s suggestion is bordering on the line of a plea, “Get out of the Glades, before it kills you.”

He imagines Sara smiling at him from beside Raymond, the warmth of her face enough for him to know that he was doing the right thing by looking out for his partner. He thinks Sara would agree with him. The Glades doesn’t deserve Raymond’s heart. The least he can do is save it before it turns icy cold or stone black like everyone else’s. 

“Come on,” Leonard gives Raymond an encouraging pat on the arm and puts on a smirk, “We still got those assault cases to look at.”

Raymond nods, and a small smile forms on his face as he and Leonard take off walking down the street again, heading to their destination. 

XXX

“No need to look so surprised,” Leonard drawls, stepping out of the bus to meet Alexa and some other officers. 

She withdraws the look of disbelief and smiles at him warmly, “Better late than never, I suppose.”

Leonard looks down at his watch. Okay, he’s about 20 minutes late, but his excuse is that he was on the other side of the Glades still working those assault cases. He wanted to keep Raymond company for as long as possible, and ensure that the guy was safe before heading off for his patrols. 

Sara sat beside him on the bus ride over. It was nice to have her with him. He could almost feel her weight press down on him as she leans her shoulder into his. Sitting quietly himself, he would listen attentively to whatever story Sara has to say, usually about how she saved someone from being mugged, or worse. Leonard had been so enthralled by the idea of having Sara beside him that he almost missed his stop. 

“Busy day?” Leonard notices the tired look on Alexa’s face. 

Had he actually been participating in the patrols over the week, he would see that she’d been looking like this for days now. 

She shrugs, “Just a bunch of protestors and kids making some noise on the street. Where have you been all day?”  
“Thought I’d take Raymond out to see China Town,” Leonard drawls, falling into line with Alexa as she begins leading the officers off and resuming their patrols, “Showing him the sights. Clear a few assault cases.”  
“Enjoy your date?” Alexa playfully nudges his shoulder and flashes a teasing smile his way. 

Leonard rolls his eyes, “I’m pretty sure I broke up with him,” he says with a casual drawl, “Told him to leave the Glades and never come back. Better he gets out of here before winding up dead.”  
“I see,” Alexa presses her lips in a firm line and nods, her focused gaze looking ahead of their path, “It was a good call to make.”

They fall into a companionable silence, while the sounds of the Glades around them continue to roar on in the background. The clunking and rattling of other officer’s gears can be heard behind Leonard and Alexa. A persistent easterly wind comes towards them head on until they turn at the end of the street and it starts blowing into their side. 

Out here among the rundown stores, most of their patrol involves just giving warnings to groups of kids who are painting walls with cans of spray paint. Green arrowheads, red and yellow lightning bolts and a weird looking ‘S’ symbol, and a black bat. Symbols of those that the people here in the Glades believe will save them. Heroes and vigilantes, some of them being the people who discovered the List. 

What was Sara’s relationship with them? Leonard knows that the Arrow guy is local to Star City, reports of him frequently reaching the Glades. Did Sara and the Arrow work together? Did they even know each other? Leonard’s thumb brushes against the picture of Sara in his pocket as he tries to imagine the badass blonde working with the Arrow. It seems likely they would know each other, but something in his gut tells him that their relationship is less than amicable. She chose the Glades over the rest of Star City, and now that he thinks about it, the Arrow hadn’t been seen in the Glades since reports of the White Canary began. 

“Still thinking about the lost daughter?” Alexa’s voice breaks the silence as they reach the next checkpoint of their patrol route. 

Leonard takes a few seconds to let senses of his surroundings return, realising that he’d been in thought for almost an hour. The afternoon sun, which sets behind the horizon earlier and earlier with each day, is in line with the rooves of most of the buildings. Rays of light and heat still cast down on them, but weaker than the chilly winds that that still blanket the Glades. 

“Captain wants me to drop it,” Leonard drawls.  
Alexa casts an inquisitive glance at him, “Why do you care anyway? You said she’s probably out of the Glades.”  
Leonard shrugs, “Doesn’t mean she’s safe.”  
Alexa sighs and tightens the strap around her torso for her coat, “You hate doing missing person cases. You couldn’t care less whether someone from Star City goes missing.”

She’s right. Leonard hums to himself quietly as he remembers all the other missing person cases he’s been assigned over the years. It’s not his job, so the contracts are quite infrequent and usually punishment by the captain for something he had done recently. There are usually three different types of missing person’s cases he gets. Ones where the person turns up dead a few weeks later, spouses who have fled the city to get away from their partner or to have an affair with someone else, or the final group of people, the ones who simply are never found again. 

The one thing they all have in common, is that Leonard hardly gives a damn. Maybe if the circumstances are interesting then he can allow himself to get interested, but the people themselves mean nothing to him. He can’t allow them to mean something to him, because too often reality is grim, and it puts a toll on one’s soul. 

After a few more checkpoints, the officers all load up on one of the buses and continue the patrols until after dark. Nothing particularly violent happens during the patrol, but there are frequent mobs and chanting crowds which they had to disperse in case something violent turned out from them. 

Around eight in the evening, a thought crosses Leonard’s mind as the bus turns down the street that houses an entire block of bars and nightclubs. 

“I have to check on something,” he turns in his seat on the bus to look at Halsey, “Cover for me.”

Just like that, Leonard bounds of his seat and moves to the front of the bus, getting the driver to slow down a bit so Leonard can jump out. 

Alexa rubs her hand over her eyes and sighs, “Sure,” she calls out sarcastically to his form at the front of the bus, “No problem.”

Leonard lifts a hand in response, signalling his thanks before he jumps out the slowly moving bus and heads back down the street as the bus keeps rolling onwards, picking up speed again. 

He spares a look at the back of the vehicle, watching it continue down the street. A few moments later, Leonard scans his across the row of bars on the other side of the streets and darts across the road. He walks up and down the street for a few minutes, watching the hundreds of people milling inside the bars or walking up and down the street with him. 

He picks up on some conversations, hears some complaining about their shitty job, another talking on the phone trying to persuade their friend to join them at the club. Masses of colours around him make him feel like he’s in some painting exhibit. His focus, however, is on one particular bar out of the lot. 

Hovering around the entrance for a few minutes, his body being bumped into consistently as people pass by, Leonard finally decides to enter the bar. For a Wednesday night, it is reasonably packed, although he suspects that with the knowledge of the List, people have more reason to go out drinking while they still can. A bit on the small side, the building is narrow and short. Red lamps high up on the walls cast a warm glow above each table, music blasting from the multitude of speakers with a fractional audio delay that boosts the sound. 

Resistance tattoos mark the skin of many of the patrons in here, and while that fact alone is why Leonard avoids this particular bar, tonight, it is the reason for his presence. 

Strolling up the bar, squeezing past some patrons and finding a vacant spot at the corner of the bench, Leonard grabs the tender’s attention. She’s a middle-aged woman, wearing a singlet that shows off the Resistance tat on her right shoulder, brown hair going down her front with the ends brushing against her cleavage. 

Placing his badge on the table with his palm firmly on it, he waits to meet her gaze.

“What can I get you,” the woman cocks an eyebrow, looking at the badge on the wooden bar, “detective?”  
Leonard remains stoic at the spite in her tone, “Small beer and a chat with your boss.”  
“The manager is busy tonight-”

“Not that boss,” Leonard cuts in, “Your other one,” he corrects, eyes honing on the tat on her shoulder.  
Her eyes narrow in his direction, “One beer coming up.”

Leonard could begin feeling eyes bore into his back from the other patrons, but he simply ignored them and tended to the frothy drink before him. He had to admit, it was sort of unnerving being in here, and he knew that he had no real power to summon anybody, but the fact that there was a cop in a bar of Resistance members should be enough to draw the right kind of attention. Or wrong. Or maybe it’s both at this point, Leonard doesn’t really know. Hell, Leonard doesn’t even bloody know who the leader of the Resistance is in the Glades. All he does know is that he could be found here.

Twenty minutes pass. Leonard is on his third drink, which he thinks he’s managing pretty well considering the past week of drinking he’s been doing, when he senses a body behind and the patrons in the stools beside him look to the individual before rising out of their seats. 

Sliding into the now vacant seat, is a short, fit man with a scar under his right eye. He wears a brown coat over the black undershirt, buzzcut hair like Leonards, and dark stubble along the sides of his jaw, forming into a dark patch of hair at his chin. 

“Good evening, detective,” the man speaks with a thick accent, a touch of gruff around the edges, “A quiet night for a drink, huh? The name is Rene Ramirez.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cut down the end bar scene and have attached that to the next chapter. I've already begun writing it before this upload and hopefully, it will be up quicker than this chapter took to finish. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there. 
> 
> There's still a few more chapters of Act 1 left to go (I think). I know how all the events that will lead up to the conclusion of Act 1, just not sure how many words I'll end up using to get there.
> 
> Hope you enjoy.

Leonard side eyes the man who drops into the seat beside him. 

“Yeah, you could say that,” Leonard drawls, taking a sip from his drink as the barkeep brings forth a drink for his new companion, “Leonard Snart,” he adds, returning the greeting.

Beside him, Rene takes a slow and meticulous sip of his drink, and Leonard feels the testing look from the leader. So he remains stoic and takes another gulp of his drink before keeping it planted to the bar and turns his head slightly to look at the leader of the Resistance. 

“You wanted to talk, so what brings you here,” the man asks.  
Leonard frowns at the dignified tone in his voice, “Hoping for a little peace and control in these dark times,” he drawls, “Figured you might be able to help me get some of that.”  
A thin smile forms on Rene’s face, “I might. What seems to be the issue, detective?”

“The Triads are gone,” Leonard watches the man’s face and sees no sign of surprise or shock, which either means this guy already knew, or is a good actor, although the possibility that the alcohol has gotten to him sooner than expected is a possibility, “And the Resistance seems to be growing in members now more than ever. I want to know if there are any intentions regarding this power vacuum.”

“What are you insinuating?” the leader smirks, fully aware of the insinuation, just wanting to make Snart say it aloud.  
Leonard’s expression turns serious, “That the Resistance has been trying to take over the criminal underground in the Glades, driving out the old families and planting roots in the empty spots.”  
“And why would we do that?” Rene counters, “With the Glades on the List, there’s no apparent future for us here.”

Leonard smirks and takes a sip from drink, shaking his head as he places the glass back on the bar, “We both know that nobody in government will make a move on the Glades anymore now that the List is revealed, especially after everything what’s been happening in the other cities. The Resistance has been looking for opportunities to build and become a stable group. Starting with the underground seems like a good way to get your foot in the door.”

“Well, don’t you sound like you know us so well?” Ramirez props an elbow against the bar and turns slightly to face Leonard, “Interested in joining us, detective?”

Leonard shakes his head and grins, hiding the temptation to punch the smug bastard in the face, “Like I said, I want some peace and control. The mobsters have been leaving over the past months, and I’d rather have an understanding of what the Resistance wants from the Glades before you swoop in and cause more chaos for everyone.”

“You think of us as criminals?” Rene raises an eyebrow.  
“Already got cells full of guys with your tats and armbands back in the precinct,” Leonard informs. 

“Anybody can get an armband or a tattoo,” Rene’s eyes sweep across the rest of the room and observe the other Resistance marked patrons, “Like those people by the window.”  
Leonard doesn’t look, but resignedly nods his head at the solid argument, “There’s still plenty of genuine criminals in your group.”

Rene nods his head and a disapproving expression forms on his face, “I am aware, much to my own annoyance as I suspect yours, detective. But I care for the future of the Glades, now more than ever. I care for everyone who lives here and abroad, including you detective. I want to make our home is a better place. Taking over the criminal underground does not help me reach that goal.”

Leonard leans back and examines the leader’s form, eyes scanning his body for any tell-tale signs of a lie or agitation sparked from hiding the truth. He finds none of it. Which surprises him. 

“So the Resistance, didn’t, drive out the mobsters?” Leonard drawls, cocking his head slightly.  
Rene shakes his head, “I would like to take credit for cleaning our streets, but I can’t. It was not us.”  
“Do you know what made them leave?”

Rene shakes his head and shrugs.

Leonard nods, and reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, “Alright. One last thing we need to talk about. Sara Lance. You recognise her?”

“Pretty lady,” Rene commends, and this time, Leonard does spot a change in his expression, “What’s the situation?”  
“Daddy’s calling her home and she’s gone missing,” Leonard drawls, propping his own elbow on the bar and mushing his cheek into his open palm, “She’s Resistance too. Figured you might know something about her.”

“Do you really expect me to know everyone in the Resistance?” Rene has an amused and challenging look on his face, “Our numbers grow every day, detective.”  
“Yeah,” Leonard grins and exaggerates the drawl, “But that doesn’t matter, because you do know her. What leader wouldn’t know that one of their members is the daughter of the mayor’s Chief of Staff?”

Rene chuckles and finishes off his drink before gesturing to the barkeep for a refill. He offers one to Leonard, but the cop declines and keeps his attention on the leader of the Resistance. 

“Yes, I know Ms Lance,” Rene admits, shifting in the chair to make himself more comfortable, “A burning spirit for the Glades in that one.”  
“She works for you,” Leonard states matter-of-factly, “And from what I’ve found, she left the Glades just before the List came out and hasn’t been heard from since. Unless you have heard from her. What did you have her doing?” he keeps a calm expression on his face. 

“Ms Lance is just a young girl,” Rene smirks, an equally calm expression on his own face, “Why would I have her doing anything?”  
Leonard forms a tooth revealing grin and shakes his head, “Cause we both know she’s more than just a little girl.”

There’s a look in both of their eyes, competing like a battle of wits. Without saying it, they both know what they mean.

“Let me ask you detective Snart,” Rene lifts up his hand, “Did you know Sara Lance?”  
Leonard fixes him with a firm stare, “No.”  
Rene shrugs and gestures with open arms, “Then why do you care about finding her? You don’t look like her type, and I certainly doubt you two were friends. Is it the money? Is that why you want to find her?”

Leonard huffs and sculls the rest of his drink, “You took a young girl with daddy issues and sent her on a mission that might have gotten her killed. It’s more than just a coincidence that some heroes and vigilantes discover the List not long after she leaves, isn’t it?” 

There is a challenging tone in Leonard’s voice, making it clear that this game that he’s playing with Ramirez is over. 

“You know what,” Rene pats the bar between them, “I’ll ask around about Ms Lance. See what I can find for you. Will that be all?”

Leonard pushes the stool back and rises to his feet, masking the drunken sway by stabilising himself on the bar with his hands and elbow, “Yeah, that’ll be all.”

Rene takes a swig of his own drink and stares at Leonard, “It was a pleasure to meet you detective Snart. I can see you care about this city, in your own pessimistic way. The Glades will need people to help shape its future. When you’re ready, maybe you can find a place among the Resistance.”

Leonard rolls his eyes and turns around, lifting a hand in a departing gesture as he heads for the entrance. He casts a look back over his shoulder and sees the Resistance leader smirking at him, giving him a small nod before Leonard exits the bar. 

Bracing the cold, evening wind, Leonard stuffs his hands into his parka pockets and hunches his back to try and keep his neck sheltered. The photo of Sara brushes against his palm in his pocket. 

“He knows you’re the canary,” he looks to see the short blonde by his side, swerving around a couple that just walked past him, “But what did he have you doing?”

Sara doesn’t respond, but once the crowd starts getting thinner, she moves in closer to his side as they continue walking the rest of the way. Leonard doesn’t know where he’s heading exactly, so he stops and tries to decide whether he tries and intercepts the patrol routes, or just head home and sleep. The latter sounds favourable, but the guilt of leaving Alexa like that eats away at him slightly. 

Eventually, the weight of the guilt surpasses his desire for sleep, knowing that he won’t sleep well if skipping patrols is going to get him in trouble. It takes almost half an hour, but Leonard finally tracks down the parked bus as officers are moving on and off. 

Hoisted between two big officers, is a skinny drunk with blood around his nose and on his hand, marking some nasty cuts. When Leonard approaches the scene, he finds a glass bottle smashed at the entrance of the alley between two apartment buildings. 

“What happened with him?” Leonard strides up to Alexa’s side, startling her momentarily by his unexpected return.  
“Just your average drunk and disorderly,” Alexa sighs, hands on her hips as she watches the officers cuff him to one of the seats in the bus, while another begins applying some basic medical aid, “How was your little side quest?”

“Well, the Resistance aren’t the ones driving out the mobsters. They’re just as clueless as to why they left as we are,” Leonard answers.  
Alexa raises an eyebrow, her hair appearing closer to black in the faint glow from the street light behind her, “Okay, and how do you know this?”

“Had a few drinks with their boss,” Leonard flashes a smirk as he and Alexa step onto the bus and find their seats, putting some distance between themselves and the other officers, “He said he doesn’t want to take over the criminal undergrounds. Something about it not helping him achieve his goal of building a better future for the Glades.”

“First off,” Alexa puts up a hand and stops him from continuing to talk, “Why did the boss of the Resistance even meet with you?”  
Leonard frowns, his gaze drifting off outside the bus windows, “Must be my charming personality that drew him in,” he answers with a smug expression. 

Alexa rolls her eyes, “Fine. Second, how can you be sure he was telling the truth?”  
This time, Leonard shrugs, “I don’t. But, I know he was.”

Leonard was watching him the entire time, looking for signs of lying from Ramirez, and other than the initial denying of his plans for making change in the Glades, he appeared quite truthful. And maybe it’s just his pessimism talking, but there was something annoyingly idealistic about the way Rene preached for a better Glades. 

There was always the possibility that Leonard wasn’t even talking to the leader of the Resistance, but with the way that guy spoke, he could see a leader when he saw one. On that, Leonard was without doubt. 

Regarding the missing mobsters and the Resistance’s involvement, Rameriz was telling the truth. 

Regarding the situation of Sara Lance, there was far more than what Rameriz was letting on. The guy knows, or at least knows the person who knows what happened to Sara. Maybe there was a liaison between the boss and the White Canary, someone else that relays communication between the two parties. But regardless of their communication methods, he sent his soldier on a mission that she hasn’t come back from yet, and amidst all the confidence and smugness of the leader, Leonard believed that there was an underlying concern of her status. 

He hoped. 

And if not, then at least Leonard cared. And for that, Leonard would continue searching. 

XXX

No nightmares plague his sleep that night, and the beers from the bar don’t make him feel sick in the morning. For the first night since the List came out, Leonard has a decent sleep, albeit the need to wake up earlier than he would have liked. 

After having breakfast, taking a nice and short shower to freshen himself up, Leonard pulls up all his notes of Sara’s case on his phone and scrolls through while relaxing into his couch. 

The martial arts studio that Sara earned her awards is listed in the notes, and it reminds him of those videos on her laptop that included herself and some other girl. He should start there. If Sara has any friends, possibly the girl in the sparring video, someone at the dojo should know. 

Whilst her apartment is undoubtedly solitary and personal, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that she enjoys the company and loves people. Hell, one would have to love the people to continue fighting for them, especially as the White Canary. She must have a confidant, someone she talks to about what she does. The leader of the Resistance knows she’s the White Canary, but Leonard can’t imagine Sara forming more than a professional relationship with him. 

Leonard needs to find this person, because hopefully, they will know more about what Sara was doing that made her leave, if Rameriz doesn’t come through with his offer. Something that Leonard has doubt of ever being seen through.

The walk to the precinct gives him time alone. Or really, time to spend with his Sara. For a brief moment, the idea of this whole situation makes him question his sanity, but when the short blonde flashes a smile at him and tucks her hair behind her ear, all doubts find themselves silenced. 

Sara is his warmth in this winter breeze, his beacon of light in these dark times. Sara is the hope that Leonard has been unknowingly longing for all these decades of his life. Sara was so much like him, weathered and bruised after battling the harshness of life, but she had become a completely different person at the end of it compared to Leonard. 

Leonard hasn’t felt more purpose in his life than the goal to find Sara Lance and get her home safely. It didn’t matter what home actually was, but anywhere would be better than where ever she is now, for that he is sure. 

“Morning, Snart,” Ray smiles from Leonard’s desk.  
Leonard drops into the spare chair beside his desk, arm propped against the edge, “Hey. Did you take up that request for transfer?”

Raymond taps his finger on the docket in front of him, and Leonard turns his head to the side to read the title. 

“Good,” Leonard says, his eyes meeting Raymond in an attempt to assure him, “You’re making the right decision, boy scout.”  
Raymond’s posture straightens as an eager look replaces the solemness on his face, “So, what are we going to do today?” 

He’s suddenly reminded of how he used to look after Lisa, the way she would practically bounce on her seat eagerly, waiting for Leonard to tell her where he’s taking her for the day. But some days he couldn’t take her anywhere, and he would watch as her little face would falter and it gutted him every time he had to take away her joy. 

“We aren’t doing anything,” Leonard answers, “I have some leads I need to track down.”  
Raymond looks at Leonard with a puzzled expression, “Leads? For what case?”

Leonard falls silent as his eyes drop to the cardboard folder that he had left in the file container on his desk. ‘Lance, Sara’ sticks out to him, and he has to tear his gaze away to look back at Raymond, who had also noticed where Leonard’s attention had turned to. The boy scout knows what Leonard means. 

Raymond sighs, a disappointed look on the verge of forming, “Alright. You want me to cover for you?”  
Leonard flashes a guilt-ridden smile for less than a second, following up with a nod, “I shouldn’t be long. Just need to find a possible friend of hers and get some answers. I should make it back before I need to do patrols. Might have time for a quick case.”

Raymond does a good job of not looking utterly disappointed, probably still going off the enjoyment of solving those assault cases from yesterday. Leonard had been impressed once again by the genius boy scout’s skills, and it continued to make him aware that his talents were wasted in the Glades. Everything just reinforced Leonard’s desire to get Raymond away from here as soon as possible. 

“Thanks, partner,” Leonard tries a humorous drawl as he rises to his feet, patting Raymond on the shoulder before heading down the steps and exiting the precinct. 

So much for keeping his investigation to outside of shift hours. Leonard just can’t focus on any other case when his mind is so certain that she is the only case they should be focusing on. 

Nine o’clock is approaching by the time he reaches the martial arts school. Since this place is located near the large majority of the shops, foot traffic is quite heavy. Leonard passes the illegitimate antique's dealer before stopping just outside the window of the martial arts school. Just next door is the clinic, which a person with crutches and a brace around their leg is walking out of right now. 

Through the glass, Leonard peers inside and sees a group of younger people, kids ranging from barely toddlers to early teens. A few parents sit along the back wall, some talking amongst each other while others keep attentive on their children. 

Leonard walks over to the door and pushes it open, the jingle of a bell resonating above him as he crosses the barrier. Some people turn to look, others don’t. One of them gives him a brief look of exanimation before losing interest and focusing back on their child. It’s simply the way things are. People like Leonard don’t attract much attention, and the only reason he did receive so much is as a result of the jingling bells. 

It doesn’t take long for Leonard to find the man who looks to be in charge. Wearing a white garment, he appears to be in deep conversation with some of the parents. Deciding that he can spare to wait, Leonard turns his attention to the woman in another white garment leading the group of children on the mat through various moves and stances. 

Long black hair is tucked into the back of her collar, and she moves with a fluid gracefulness as she transitions from stance, to strike, and back again. She has a firm expression, one that could be found intimidating, but more commonly elicits a sense of respect for the art and her teachings. Leonard wonders how she’s managed to make a group of almost 20 kids so well disciplined and attentive. Most day-cares can’t do that. 

When one of the smaller kids makes a mistake, tripping over her own feet and planting herself on her back, the woman instructs the rest of the group to continue as normal while she walks over and helps the young girl up. She assures the young girl, then spends a few moments guiding her personally on how to accomplish the move. 

Leonard wonders if Sara was like that, helping other people learn how to correctly perform these techniques. Just taking one look at her, noting the smile on her face as she watches the training children with him, is all he needs to know that she would. 

Still watching the woman going through the drills with the kids, Leonard notices the older man walking in his direction and meets his gaze. A few moments later, and he approaches Leonard. 

Like the woman, his hair is dark black, but significantly shorter and combed smoothly across the top of his head. His toned skin resembles something of a Middle-Eastern nationality. A thin beard and moustache surround his mouth, and when his hand extends out towards Leonard, he notices the golden rings around his fingers.

“What can I do for you, detective?” the man greets with an unwavering and confident tone. 

Leonard cocks his head slightly, extending his hand to meet the man’s and shaking it. The man’s eyes gaze down Leonard’s body to his waist, and Leonard realises his badge is showing on his belt. 

“Looking for a woman,” Snart drawls, returning his hand to person and retrieving the photo from his pocket, “I know she practices here.”

The older man takes the photo and Leonard immediately detects the awareness in the person’s face. 

“Ms Lance,” the man says, “I have not seen her for some time.”  
“Yeah,” Leonard nods, “She’s gone missing and now her father wants her found.”

The man’s gaze lifts from the photo in his hand to Leonard in a slow blink, “A kidnap job then?”  
Leonard shrugs “Something like that. Looking for anything that might help me find her. People who might have known where she was heading off to.”

“You make it sound like she’s in some kind of trouble,” the man returns the photo.

“Because I think she might be,” Leonard says, pocketing the photo again.  
“Ms Lance knows how to defend herself,” the man assures.  
Leonard cocks his head to the side, “I don’t doubt that considering she’s at the second highest ranking here, but this might be a different kind of trouble.”

The man studies him for a few moments, head tilting slightly as his eyes narrow. There’s a faint look of surprise at Leonard’s knowledge, which makes the detective feel just a bit smug. 

But Leonard keeps a blank expression, “I’m a cop, I find things out. But I’d like to find out more so I can help her.”  
“She has a few friends,” he gestures with a nod of his head in the direction of the woman training the younglings, “My daughter is one of them. There are some other women here that she frequently spent time around.”

“Any way I can find one of them? Someone who might know more than the others.”

The studious look returns on the man’s face, and the smooth white fabric creases as he crosses his arms over his chest, “You seem motivated to find her, yet you do not seem to know her personally. Why?”

Why indeed? Why had Sara’s case found its way into his life and so quickly rooted itself as his new purpose in life?

“I don’t know,” Leonard’s mask falls from his mask as he loses himself in trying to understand his own motivation. 

The man is unresponsive for a few moments before uncrossing his arms, “I might have something. With me.”

XXX

That evening around 11, Leonard finds himself in Henry’s strip club, Good Fortunes. Located on the corner of a street, the building is reasonably large, and the floor space is open enough to hold the various stages, tables and couches. The bar is located along the right side of the building from the entrance, with the main stage pushed against the far wall where three women are currently dancing, surrounded by a mass of men, and some women. 

Leonard finds a quiet little corner on the left side of the building, selecting one of the stools and benches and keeping himself at a distance from the crowd. His eyes are scanning among the different girls, looking for one in particular. This is supposedly the place of work for someone that knows Sara well, or at least, who the martial arts master believes knows Sara well. Leonard got to talk to his daughter too after the class, but her relationship with Sara didn’t extend beyond the sparring. Although, he could tell that the daughter liked Sara. 

Purple and grey paint cover the walls, a swirl of melding colours that create a light and dark canvas for the multi-coloured ceiling lights that spin in patterns. Music pumps from the various speakers, one of them being right above Leonard’s head. Fortunately, most of the audio from that speaker is directed over him, making the volume bearable on his ears, although that doesn’t stop the vibrations of the bass from bouncing across the room and colliding with him, making his chest feel tingle with each kick. 

Leonard used to come to places like this. He found them better than going to a bar. Usually the entry fee deterred most of the rowdy folks, and the service was often better because of that. Besides, most of the women here are quite attractive and pleasing on the eyes, although Leonard will happily admit he’s been enticed by some of the men who occasionally put on a little show too. 

Not even being a cop stopped him from coming to strip clubs, in fact, he came here more often because of that. A few of the other detectives and officers would invite him out with them.

Leonard can’t really explain why he stopped showing up though. It wasn’t Alexa, because he already stopped before he even met her. Something in him changed and he just didn’t find the pleasure in it anymore. 

Right now, he was feeling remnants of the nostalgia, which almost makes him laugh. He never thought he’d become nostalgic about visiting strip clubs. 

“Mr Snart?” a woman’s voice snaps him out of his thoughts, originating from behind his person. 

Leonard twists in the seat, an arm on the table. Dressed in a white-laced, vibrant blue corset is Simone, holding a glass in her hand. The busty girl has a surprised expression on her face as Leonard matches her gaze, then quickly recomposes herself.

“I, uh, didn’t know you visited here,” she takes a step closer and stands at the side of his table.  
“I don’t,” Leonard huffs with a smirk, “Police business, actually. You and your girlfriend doing good?”

Simone smiles and places the drink on the table as she leans her hip into it, “We’re doing well, all things considered. Neighbourhood is getting rougher. I think everyone’s just scared about what’s going to happen to them because of the List.”  
Leonard nods, “Yeah, that List is bad fucking shit, isn’t it?” Simone nods, “I dealt with Tony. He hasn’t been bothering you two since?”

Simone smiles again and shakes her head, “Nope. And thank you so much. Hannah is much happier now, and she wanted to thank you herself, but things have been pretty chaotic in this city lately. I can’t imagine what it must be like trying to be a cop. Aren’t you guys doing patrols every night?”

Leonard nods and strums his fingers along the table once before clenching his fist, “Finished my shift half an hour ago.”

After getting the information from the martial arts school, Leonard returned back to the precinct with some time to get Raymond out and solve a small B&E case before Leonard had to rush off for patrols. Once again, he was late, but Alexa just seemed glad to see him at all. For the remainder of the afternoon and the few hours into the evening, Leonard just followed the other cops. In reality, Leonard hardly participated, as his thoughts were focused heavily on Sara’s case. He was there in person, but not in mind. 

“So what brings you here?” Simone plants her hands on her hips and looks at him curiously.  
“Looking for someone that relates to a case,” Leonard answers, “Maybe you can help. I’ve only got a name. Cindy, or Cynthia, I think.”

“Oh,” exclaims Simone, “You mean Sin. Yeah, I know her. She arrived not long ago. Do you want me to get her?”  
“Uh, cheers,” Leonard returns a small smile as Simone turns away, “Wait.”

The young woman turns back and looks at him curiously. Leonard reaches into his pocket and pulls out some of the money he kept from the Count’s dealer when he first met Simone. 

“Stay safe,” Leonard says in a serious tone, then forms a smirk on his face as he hands the money over, “I’d be pissed if I saw your name as one my cases.”  
Simone laughs and accepts the money, stuffing it between her breasts and the corset, “Will do, Mr Snart.”

A few minutes pass and Leonard sips on the drink that Simone had brought over for him. Since that week of heavy drinking, and feeling repulsed with himself at how he let himself get so consumed with the fear of his nightmares, he wants to return a sense of control for himself. He wants to prove himself that he isn’t slipping into the same state as his father did. 

He’s better than that. 

Right?

“Heard you were looking for me?” a young woman with short and scruffy black hair approaches his table.  
“Detective Snart,” Leonard introduces, gesturing to the seat opposite him, “Need to talk about a friend of yours.”

The woman, Sin, drops into the chair and there’s a hopeful look on her face, “Did you find Sara?”  
Leonard sits back at the suddenness, “You know she’s been missing?”  
Sin nods, “She’s been gone for a few weeks now, and I haven’t heard from her since.”

Not what Leonard wanted to hear. There had been a hopeful reliance on Sin hearing from Sara recently, but he knew it was too much to hope for. Oh well, maybe there can still be some useful information. 

“What was the last thing you heard from her then?” Leonard asks. 

A look of cautiousness forms on Sin’s face, and at that moment, Leonard realises that she definitely knows about Sara’s extracurricular activities. 

“I know about the bird thing,” Leonard drawls, “I don’t want to arrest for it. I want to find her. I think something went wrong.”  
“You’re a cop though,” Sin frowns, “Why do you care? You lot hate vigilantes.”

Leonard sighs and slumps his shoulders forward, grumbling under his breath, “Why the fuck do people keep asking me that question?

“Can you just accept the fact that I want to find her and then tell me what you know?” Leonard drawls, patience beginning to wear thin.  
Sin scowls at him for a second, then allows her expression to settle and relax into the seat, “There were rumours about some women in the Glades going missing. Sara is pretty protective of women around the Glades. She says that women shouldn’t ever have to suffer at the hands of men.”

Leonard nods, his mind easily melding that line into his own imagining of Sara. It fits perfectly, the damaged but unbroken woman with a fierce will, a passionate love for people, and a greater passion for fighting against injustice. Like she is a beacon to him, Sara is a beacon of safety and comfort for every woman in the Glades.

“Not to say she won’t help men when they need it,” Sin adds, “But women were personal for her.”

He remembers what the martial arts instructor said when they were in his office. He said that when Sara began, she was a brilliant combatant, but she was a bit quick to anger. Something had changed her after those years lost at sea. Was she attacked? Or worse? Whatever the unknown truth behind her story is, Sara came out the other side a stronger person because of it.

“Were these missing women reported to the police?”  
Sin shrugs, “I don’t know. Maybe. Sara said they were practically nobodies, with no families or little to no friends that would miss them. She thinks they were targeted because of that. Look, no offence, but if you were given one of their cases, would you give a damn?”

Leonard is silent for a few moments, his eyes dropping to the drink which he takes a sip from to deflect the question. It answers her question just how she imagined it. 

“Well she gave a crap,” Sin continues, “So she went investigating them. She wouldn’t tell me much, said it was too dangerous for me to know, but she found some pattern to their disappearances. You know those private security corporations that come into the Glades? Mercs looking to be hired by one of the families or one of the few remaining actual businesses that still make valuable stuff.”

“Yeah,” Leonard nods, “One of them was causing SCPD some trouble a few months ago.”  
“Well, Sara found that the women were disappearing around the same time that one of those private military groups were coming in and out of the Glades,” Sin informs, “On more than five confirmed separate occasions and six other suspected times.”

His fingers begin strumming on the edge of the table as he tries to search his memory for any possible mention of it from one of the other officers. But as Sin said, these women weren’t being reported missing because no one cared enough to report them, or didn’t think the police would care. 

Had SCPD’s reputation in the Glades really been so low that they inadvertently left women to be abducted and possibly killed? 

“That’s pretty much all I know. Sara wouldn’t tell me much after that. I know she went to the Resistance and a week later she said she was leaving to head east and follow a lead on them,” a concerned look forms on her face, “What if those private military guys found her? Do you think she’s dead?”

Did he? Part of him held it in the back of his mind, but Leonard was holding onto something inside him that was preventing him from believing that Sara was dead. He was going to find her. He was going to return her home safe and sound, or as realistically close as possible for someone like her. 

“She’s not dead until a body is found,” Leonard says, more to himself than Sin admittedly, “Do you know if she kept any information about her investigation? Something that might indicate where she was tracking these people to?”

Sin shrugs, her head turning to look at the stage as a roar of cheering erupts by there, “If she kept anything, it’s on her laptop.”  
Leonard shakes his head, “Already checked. Didn’t see anything about missing women.”

Sin crosses her arms and looks at him sceptically, “You went through her apartment?”  
Leonard gives an expectant look, “It’s my job to investigate.”  
She ponders on that for a few moments, then concedes and relaxes, “Well she probably has the files hidden on her computer. Some protective encryption or program that hides them unless you know how to look for them. Stops people like you,” a toothy grin shows on her face, “from peeping.”

“Think you know how to access those hidden files?” Leonard ignores the taunt.  
Sin huffs and lifts her hands, “Hell no. Computers ain’t my thing, man. Sorry.”

Leonard gestures with a dismissive wave and takes a sip of his drink. His mind takes some time to process everything he’s been told. Private military. Missing women. Seeking help from the Resistance. Heading east. 

It’s like he’s looking at a flow chart in his head, but he only sees the tasks and results. Not how one event leads to another, no process flow or anything that suggests how Sara got from point A to B in her mission. 

“Hey, umm,” Sin pushes herself to her feet and holds herself awkwardly, tentative as she tries to make eye contact with Leonard, “If you find her, can you let me know.”  
He meets her gaze with a solemn look, “Even if it means learning the truth?”

What he means by the truth is known immediately.

She takes a deep breath, her posture straightening as she does so, “Yeah,” she nods with a sense of confidence and acceptance, “Even if it means learning the truth.”

Leonard pulls out his phone and opens up the notes application and hands it over to her, “Whatever way you want to be contacted. When I get answers, I’ll tell you.”

Not ‘if’, but ‘when,’ because he is damn well going to get answers.

“Thank you,” Sin smiles, still tapping away on the phone screen.  
Leonard grunts as he pulls another bundle of cash and hands it over to her in exchange for his phone, “Should be enough to cover what you lost from talking to me and then some.”  
“Thank you,” she repeats, giving him another smile before walking away and leaving Leonard to himself. 

The detective sits at the table, taking in the contact details for Sin before pocketing his phone and looking out to the rest of the building. His eyes look at everything but see nothing, his mind entirely focused on Sara. 

When he turns back to his drink, after who knows how long, he finds the blonde sitting on the other side of the table from him. 

“What kind of shitstorm have you uncovered?” Leonard asks before taking a large swig of his drink, closing his eyes as he lets the burning taste go down his throat. 

She doesn’t respond, just gives him a soft smile before rising to her feet and standing at the end of the table, extending a hand towards him. Leonard looks at it for a few seconds, before sculling the rest of his drink and placing his hand in hers, rising to his own feet and standing beside her. 

Their interlocked hands fall in the small space between them. He imagines her hands are both soft, yet calloused. A perfect mixture that finds itself fitting exactly into his own hands. They leave the strip club together, emerging into the cold and chilly night. 

He looks at his watch and discovers that it’s past midnight, making him realise that he spent longer in there than he thought. How long had he been processing the information about Sara after Sin had left him? 

Even with the sound of the bass-heavy music coming from the entrance of the club and the others around it, the whisper of Sara’s voice in his ear is loud and clear. She tells him to follow her back to her apartment, before turning around, hands still holding onto each other, and guides him towards their decided destination. 

Leonard has to jog to match pace and their hands return comfortably at their sides. 

“I’ll find you, Canary,” he promises, “I’m getting close.”


End file.
